WALTHAM, Mass. (MyFoxBoston.com) - A three-alarm fire at a Waltham apartment building sent residents rushing to safety on Sunday morning.
Officials did not immediately release the cause of the fire that damaged the Russell Street, multi-family, but they confirmed the fire started in an occupied unit that residents exited as crews arrived.
Orlando Osorio, 17, who has lived in a first-floor unit with his father for seven years, ran outside and, with tears streaming down his face, watched the building burn.
“It was just a normal Sunday, and then I started smelling smoke,” Osorio said. “We had to rush out. I didn’t even know what to grab.”
Osorio, his father and all their neighbors who were home at the time escaped without injury.
Flames scorched the top half of the building, causing obvious damage to those units. Osorio, helplessly watching firefighters battle the flames, feared his first-floor apartment would be irreparably damaged by smoke and water.
“Everything. Everything I have,” Osorio said, of his possessions inside the home. “It just feels like a nightmare.”
Newton, Weston and Cambridge assisted all of Waltham’s crews, as the flames were difficult to access in the eaves of the building.
“There was so much fire up there, we couldn’t get close to it,” Dep. Chief Cliff Richardson said. “We started an inside attack. Too hot, too smoky. We had to go out and fight it from the exterior.”
But the damage could have been worse, had it not been for a Waltham fire crew that happened to be conducting a drill just feet away when the fire broke out.
“They were doing hose testing right here in the parking lot when they saw the smoke,” Richardson said. “They called it in.”
Investigators said they believe the fire started in the attic, which caused a partial roof collapse and created difficulty for firefighters.
The American Red Cross is offering assistance to displaced residents. Nineteen people were left without a home.