REVERE — A five-alarm fire destroyed a triple-decker home on Endicott Avenue Thursday afternoon before quickly spreading to five other nearby buildings.
Fire Chief Christopher Bright said the department received multiple calls about the fire and arrived to see heavy flames coming from the rear of the building at 143 Endicott Ave. He said the fire started on the top floor of the home, and ultimately caused heavy damage to at least three of the buildings.
Fortunately, Bright said there were no injuries, although a dog and a cat were unaccounted for.
“I’m very grateful,” Bright said. “We had a very serious incident and no citizens were injured and no firefighters were injured.”
Paige Hight, of Lowell, said she was driving home from her job in Saugus when she saw thick pillars of smoke in the distance.
She and her mother, Revere resident Tammy Hight-Raftery, who lives on nearby Crest Avenue, immediately ran to the area to help roughly 20 other Good Samaritans evacuate families from surrounding homes.
“When this first happened, children were being dropped off (from school) on the corner of Crest and Bellingham,” Hight-Raftery said. “Those children got off their buses and were so afraid when they saw smoke and fire. They all thought it was their houses, so (my daughter) and I, we took the initiative to come running up here with them.”
Hight estimated helpers managed to evacuate 10 to 12 families before firefighters arrived. Overall, Bright said at least 15 families were impacted by the fire.
“There’s an eight-unit apartment building on the other side of this one, and it was all melting on the other side already,” Hight said. “There were hot embers that caught another house down the street, and we were down there spraying it with hoses.
“Me and so many other people were running in the houses telling people to get out because of how hot it was. It was really bad.
Revere High School students Tangie Clayton, 15, and CJ Waller, 17, were walking home from school when they said they also saw smoke in the distance.
“When we got near the beach, we saw the smoke, and I thought it was near my house so I called my mom,” Waller said. “At first I thought it was a factory, but being a Revere resident, I (knew) there were no factories.”
Despite having trouble getting an adequate water supply when they first arrived, firefighters were able to get the blaze under control by around 4:30 p.m.
No cause for the fire has been identified at this time.
Elyse Carmosino can be reached at [email protected].
