(Additional images below.)
Haverhill firefighters rescued two residents—including one from a rooftop skylight—Friday morning after a fire broke out at a six-unit condominium building at 54 Summer St.
Fire Chief Robert M. O’Brien told WHAV firefighters were dispatched at about 10 a.m. and saw light smoke coming from the Webster Street side of the building. Deputy Chief Gregg Roberts and Haverhill Police heard yelling from “a gentleman with his head poking out of the skylight of the fourth-floor level,” part of a third-floor unit.
“It was an interior fire. It was heavy fire on the third floor. Six units left and right. The left ones were pretty unscathed. The fire occurred in the third-floor unit. That’s where the person in his twenties was rescued from the loft area of that third-floor unit. It was probably originally an attic area converted. They grabbed him…That unit received heavy fire damage. The two units below on that right side all received significant water damage.”
The chief said the crew of Ladder 1, assembled on Webster Street, advanced a ladder and brought the man down in a bucket. Nearly simultaneously, the crew of Engine 1 out of the High Street station worked with police to help an elderly man out of the second floor. A cat was also rescued.
“They did a fantastic job in this fire…The fire was contained to the third floor. It was a great job—a great stop,” he added.
When the call came in, the chief said, firefighters were wrapping up at a pickup truck fire on South Pleasant Street in Bradford. As such, Engine 2, normally coming out of Sixteenth Avenue, arrived first as the crew was already heading to Water Street for a drill.
At the top of an exterior spiral staircase, where Engine 2’s crew was advancing a line, firefighters observed heavy fire behind a sliding door.
As a reminder to the public, O’Brien said the third-floor occupant correctly closed a bedroom door once he observed smoke, thereby limiting the spread of the fire. The chief said another lesson is the blaze was caused by an unattended candle.
When the call came in, firefighters were wrapping up at a pickup truck fire on South Pleasant Street in Bradford. (Mike Jarvis photograph for WHAV News.)