Mom In the News

My mom called me yesterday to tell me all about this, she fought her way past the police line by dropping a few names (she's officer Dick Melville's daughter, yo). I am worried that my life will be a constant update of fire activity once I move home.

I am starting to feel like my brother's job is dangerous. Everyone loved firefighters after 9/11 but did all the hometown boys who rushed to sign up forget that those guys died?

Apparently, my bro is pissed about this article because the boys at the firehouse are calling him Mary Poppins now.

A rush to rescue residents from fire

6 firefighters hurt in Brookline blaze

By James Vaznis Globe Staff / April 17, 2008

BROOKLINE - Minutes before a second-floor porch fire yesterday afternoon erupted into an inferno that sent six firefighters to the hospital, a nearby field maintenance worker and a neighbor rushed to save the residents inside.

Mark Bates, a 23-year-old maintenance worker at Northeastern University's Parsons Field, yelled to colleagues around 2:30 p.m. to call 911 before he scaled two chain link fences, darted across Harrison Street, and sped up the front steps. There he joined Elizabeth Warner, a psychologist who lives next door, and the two ran into the 2 1/2-story house and found a man in his 20s walking from the kitchen to a living room, unaware the porch was ablaze.

"He was absolutely stunned when I told him," Bates said. "He panicked."

Bates then ran to a smoky stairwell leading to the third floor, where the young man thought his father was. It turned out that the father, who walks with a cane, was on the second floor and all got out of the house safely.

Moments later, Bates heard a squealing noise, apparently from a barbecue grill's propane tank on the second-floor porch, seconds before the upper floors erupted in flames.

As the fire raged, commanders ordered an evacuation. However, a wall on the second floor collapsed where four firefighters were, triggering a flashover that ultimately trapped three of them. The heat was also so great that a portion of one of the firefighters' helmets melted.

Other firefighters were able to rescue them. "Luckily, we were able to get them out," Fire Chief Michael O'Reilly said.

The three firefighters, along with three additional firefighters at the scene, were taken to area hospitals where they were treated for shoulder injuries, burns, and other injuries that were not life-threatening.

Fire investigators were searching for a cause of the fire.

"It looked like a blazing disaster," said Peter Mulford, 45, a neighborhood resident who watched the fire with his 10-year-old daughter. "They tried spraying it but it looked like it kept getting worse. The smoke was so bad you couldn't even see down the street."

The mother of one of the firefighters, Craig Campagna, 28, teared up when she saw him walking on the sidewalk with his partially melted helmet and covered in soot.

"I was happy to see that he was safe," said Michelle Melville, who learned of the fire as she walked home from Brigham and Women's Hospital, where she is a nurse. "His face looked like a chimney sweep, like in 'Mary Poppins.' "

A pet parakeet reportedly died in the fire, and a cat sustained burns. The fire was the second on Harrison Street in recent months.

The Red Cross was assisting two families - or approximately eight people - who live in the house with temporary housing.

Warner said last night that it was frightening to run into a house on fire.

"I knew the older man would be home and that he would need help getting out," said Warner. She added, "While you are doing it, the adrenaline keeps you going. You don't think about being scared at the time."