PHOTOS: Six buildings caught fire in Lowell, Massachusetts, after embers from one home were blown to others amid high winds on Tuesday, the city’s fire chief said. Two firefighters were taken to the hospital.
They were being treated for for smoke inhalation and heat exhaustion, Lowell Fire Chief Phil Charron said. Firefighters from around the region came to help, from Burlington, Massachusetts, to Salem, New Hampshire.
The fire was first reported at a Bridge Street home about 2:51 p.m., and crews who arrived saw heavy flames. And the strong wind “carried fire up over the three-story building and two adjacent streets, Wachusett Street and also May Street,” Charron said, prompting some of the first crews to split up and battle new fires in Lowell’s Centralville neighborhood.
Charron called it “a very bad day, a dry day with the wind moving up the hill.” But he also noted that the wind could have carried more burning embers onto more homes.
“We’re very lucky,” Charron said. “It could have been 12, 15 buildings.” “I didn’t even have time to think, and I just ran out the back door, jumped over the fence,” said Ritaj Fadil, a resident of one of the homes.
“It’s a lot to process, because everything we own is in there,” said Shantell Nganga. Carmen Ortiz left the Bridge Street home where she has lived for 15 years minutes before the flames started.
WBTS-CD NBC 10 Boston
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