Quick-moving fire displaces Lynn family

LYNN – A two-alarm Autumn Street house fire left a family of seven homeless Thursday afternoon and sent two firefighters to the hospital with non-serious complaints.District Fire Chief Robert Bourgeois said the fire “appears to have started in the area of the back porch.” A 1:05 p.m. call brought firefighters to 62 Autumn, a three-story shingled house a block in from Chatham Street.”From the porch, it got into the walls and right into the eaves. We made a pretty good stop. It is uninhabitable but re-habitable,” said Fire Chief James McDonald.Bourgeois declined to identify the firefighters, but said they were taken to Salem Hospital for observation and treatment.Khumbah Tung identified himself as a 62 Autumn resident and said his sister went into the kitchen to cook and alerted him to the fire. He told her to call for help and attempted to use a fire extinguisher to put out the fire.Tung said his sister helped him get their grandmother, who he said is more than 80 years old, out of the house.”Everything happened so fast,” Tung said.Stephen Clements said he spotted a small fire on 62 Autumn’s back porch as he walked down Bloomfield Street. He said he saw people leaving the house and urged them to move a car out of the driveway.”The fire spread really quickly,” Clements said.Andrew Love said he spotted fire climbing up 62 Autumn’s back walls as he rode his motorcycle down Autumn Street. Love said he works for the Water and Sewer Commission, and he stopped to make sure nearby fire hydrants were in working order. He said Water and Sewer recently flushed hydrants around the city to ensure the hydrants work when firefighters need them.Tung said seven people live in 62 Autumn and said his family came to the United States from the African nation of Cameroon and moved into the East Lynn house about two years ago.The fire also damaged siding on 58 Autumn St. Bourgeois, the on-scene commander, declared a working fire at 1:08 p.m. and sounded a second alarm at 1:11 p.m. The fire was declared all out at 3:23 p.m.Bourgeois said smoke alarms in the house were working when firefighters arrived on scene. @itemlive shot from the back of my window pic.twitter.com/aaSClyqBNr – naittsyrk (@KryzusPiece) May 8, 2014