Lynn Fire battles 3 blazes in 8 hours

LYNN – Lynn firefighters had their hands full Saturday as three homes near downtown Lynn caught fire within eight hours of each other, but no injuries were reported.”We’ve been kind of inactive lately in terms of fires, but we go in spurts,” District Chief James McDonald said Sunday. “[But] we’ve had a bunch in the last week – they seem to be piling up.”Lynn firefighters, police and emergency rescue teams responded to 234 South Common St. just after 11:30 a.m., Saturday to put out a small fire that started just above the building’s doorway, sending smoke into the hallway and up the stairs, according to Lynn Police Sgt. Henry Wojewodzic. McDonald said the fire started with someone disposing of “smoking materials.”Firefighters evacuated the home, which contained about six families, before putting out the fire by hooking up a hose to a nearby fire hydrant, Wojewodzic said.”The guys got in here quickly,” he said.After the fire was put out, about a dozen residents stood outside the building, some barefoot and clutching pets, watching firefighters tear down the smoldering overhang and clean up the debris of wet, smoking wood.About an hour later, many of the firefighters just returning from the first fire responded to 8 Union Place for an electrical fire that started in a ceiling fixture at about 12:30 p.m., according to McDonald.Patricia Burton said she was cleaning a room on the second story of the 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, she 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 McDonald.McDonald 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.A third fire started around 5:30 p.m. Saturday in a second-floor apartment of a multi-family home at 22 Whiting St. and quickly spread across three floors, displacing at least four people and damaging the home, according to Fire Chief Dennis Carmody.All of the residents had evacuated safely when firefighters began “an aggressive attack” to extinguish the fire, Carmody said, tearing down plaster and knocking through the walls and roof to let the heat and smoke escape as they battled the fire, which was extinguished by about 5:45 p.m., Carmody said.But because of damages to the building, residents of the multi-family home could not go back in.Volunteers with the American Red Cross provided two families emergency temporary shelter in a hotel after the fires, Red Cross spokeswoman Kat Powers said Sunday, and also provided emergency money for immediate food and clothing.Dilenia Santana, who lives with her daughter and four grandchildren on the first floor, said the second-floor residents knocked frantically on her door when the fire started.”They said, ?Fire, fire! You have to get out,’ ” Santana said, standing across the street with only her purse.McDonald said the Whiting Street fire was also likely caused by smoking materials. He said the home was not a total loss but did suffer heavy damage.”The entire rear interior wall from the first to third floor was ripped off,” he said.McDonald said the department has no problem taking on three fires in eight hours “as long as they’re a manageable size.””If it doesn’t get to the second-alarm stage, we’re able to handle it routinely,” McDonald said. “Plus there were no injuries, and that helps.”Amber Parcher