Firefighters respond to second Lynn fire

LYNN – Lynn firefighters put out an electrical fire in a single home on Union Street just an hour after responding to another fire on South Common Street.Patricia Burton said she was cleaning a room on the second story of her 8 Union Place home on Saturday when she heard a popping noise, “like wood when you burn it.”Her television and lights cut off and Burton said she started smelling smoke in the ceiling and saw some flames licking through the plaster.”I figured I better get out of there,” she said.She tried to call firefighters on her home phone but realized she didn’t have any electricity. So she called on her cell phone and said firefighters responded quickly.”Oh thank god for cell phones,” an uninjured Burton said outside her home Saturday.Firefighters put out a small fire in the ceiling above the second-floor bedroom and investigated the attic for more flames but didn’t find any, said Deputy Chief Jim McDonald.McDonald said wiring from one of the room’s light fixtures likely caused the fire. He said electrical fires are some of the most common accidental fires, mostly because there is nothing people can do to prevent them.”The wiring was probably put in when the house got built, and it just got tired,” he said.McDonald and his crews responded to a fire less than an hour earlier at 234 South Common St., where firefighters evacuated a multi-family home after a door hang caught on fire.Read Monday’s Daily Item for photos and coverage of the fires.