Fire damages Revere bar, apartment units

REVERE – Firefighters confined a two-alarm fire Monday in a Revere Beach Boulevard barroom and apartment building to two, second-floor apartments.Deputy Fire Chief Michael Viviano described the electrical fire as accidental and said firefighters responding to 55 Revere Beach Blvd. found a building resident attempting to extinguish a ceiling fire.”He said he saw wiring on fire,” Viviano said.He said 12 people live in the building, and all residents exited safely. Viviano said a Malden firefighter was taken to the hospital for heat exhaustion treatment.Fire trucks crowded the boulevard on a pristine beach day, and onlookers watched firefighters working on the building’s roof. The Shipwreck Lounge is located on the boulevard, but some of the building’s apartments face Ocean Avenue.Viviano credited the building’s fire alarm with alerting firefighters. Resident Brenda McCarthy said she heard the alarm and rushed with her sister to save neighbor Sherryl Meade’s dog, Mary Jane, and Meade’s pet bird. As of noon Monday, Meade and building manager Al Campbello said Meade’s cats were still inside the building. Campbello said repairs and city inspection requirements probably mean the Shipwreck will be “out of business for a while.”Campbello said he smelled electrical burning in a second-floor apartment on the building’s boulevard side about a half an hour before the fire started. He said he checked the apartment and found “everything unplugged.” He was sitting across the boulevard from the building when he saw smoke coming from it.Viviano said firefighters converged on the building at 10:59 a.m. with three Revere engines and two ladder trucks and fire crews from Malden, Chelsea and the Massachusetts Port Authority assisting Revere firefighters. He declared the fire out at 1:43 p.m.”The guys did a fantastic job,” Viviano said.City Inspectional Services Director Nicholas Catinazzo said the building sustained relatively light damage with the fire confined to the upstairs apartment and a neighboring apartment. City records list the building’s owner as Louis Padova, and Catinazzo said a city inspector will speak to Padova and a contractor today, in part to upgrade the building’s status.”We’ll request we go through all the apartments before we give them an occupancy permit,” he said.