A fire that started in a second-floor bedroom left 12 people out in the cold yesterday afternoon after flames got into a partition between floors in a 100-year-old Broadway Street home and caused heavy damage. Firefighters were called to 791 Broadway St., about 3 p.m., for what was reported as a kitchen fire, but quickly discovered the blaze had actually started in a bedroom of the beige two-family house near the intersection of Wilder Street, in the shadow of UMass Lowell's South Campus.
The 2 1/2 -story wood-frame house was built with balloon construction, so flames were able to get into an area between floors, making them much tougher to extinguish, said Deputy Fire Chief Michael Cushing. Crews needed a little over an hour to get control of the blaze, which caused fire damage to bedrooms on the second floor and in the finished attic, Cushing said. The first floor suffered only water damage.
The residents all got out on their own and were unhurt. All 12 had a place to stay last night as well as financial assistance for food and clothing, said Debbie Duxbury, emergency director for the Merrimack Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross.
The cause of the blaze remains under investigation. A damage estimate was not available.
Cushing said a couple of firefighters suffered minor injuries, but nothing that required a trip to the hospital.
He said the blaze was challenging because a hydrant out front didn't work, possibly because it was frozen, and because trees around the house made it difficult to get a ladder to the roof.
About an hour after the call came in, firefighters were hacking slate off the roof with an ax, water spewing from a hose inside the building's attic through holes in the roof, extinguishing remaining hot spots.
Cushing said pieces of falling slate from the roof also posed a challenge to crews.
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