ROBERT MILLS
Lowell Sun

LOWELL - It started as a routine "box alarm," one of hundreds city firefighters respond to every year.


The automated alarm at 353 Bridge St. came in no different than any other, and when firefighters arrived a little after 4 a.m. they saw no signs of smoke or flames, said Deputy Fire Chief Michael Donnelly.

Some firefighters went to the front of the four-story building at the corner of Bridge and Second streets. Donnelly went to the side.

"I saw a person up on the fourth floor -- in trouble," Donnelly said.

Firefighters immediately grabbed a ladder and began climbing toward that man, but the unseen flames inside the building quickly grew too much for him to bear.

"Just as we got to him, he jumped," Donnelly said. "The conditions in the room became such that he couldn't stay there."

Crews immediately called for paramedics and MedFlight, but things would quickly get even more challenging.

"It all went to hell in a minute," said Donnelly.

At the front of the building, firefighters saw four people trapped on the fourth floor, and five trapped on the third floor.

Resident Kris Wilmot, 21, said he and his friend, Jeff Grigg, woke up when they began choking on smoke inside Wilmot's third-floor apartment. Also in the apartment was Grigg's younger brother, Matt, and two girls.

"Everyone started panicking," said Grigg, who helped fight fires in the Army when he served from 2006 until earlier this year. "I opened up the door and got knocked on my ass by the flames."

Grigg said the third-floor hallway was full of fire, leaving no chance for escape.

Soon firefighters would simultaneously use an aerial ladder to reach the residents on the fourth floor and a ground ladder to get those on the third floor out a window and to the ground.

Wilmot and Grigg did not even have time to put on pants. Four people were rescued from the floor above, crying as they climbed off the ladder truck.

The man who jumped was flown to Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston in critical condition. Three other residents were hospitalized.

As other residents, some shirtless, others in pajamas, huddled inside Dunkin' Donuts across the street, firefighters realized there was still at least one man inside the building, on the rapidly burning fourth floor.

Flames towered 20 feet or more into the sky from the rear of the building, and 10 feet or more from fourth-floor windows at the side as incredulous neighbors gathered across the street.

Firefighters from Ladder 3, Engine 7 and Engine 6 climbed back into the building, one perilously rolling over a railing on a narrow balcony four floors up as he made his way inside.

Among those firefighters, according to Fire Chief Edward Pitta, was Lt. Jason Strunk, Lt. David Keene, Capt. Brett Dowling, and Firefighter Russell Fisette.

Two of them would suffer injuries before returning to the ground.

As loud blasts of the horns on an engine and a ladder truck told firefighters to get out of the building, where the roof would soon collapse, initially no one emerged from the windows.

And then one after another, firefighters made their way out a window and onto the narrow iron balcony where they had entered. Behind them they doggedly pulled a man's body.

Firefighters were unable to get the body over the balcony railing and onto an aerial ladder as flames grew closer and more intense.

One firefighter leaned forward to grab the man's hand as flames shot 10 feet into the air from a window just a couple feet in front of his face.

Donnelly said he eventually had to order his men to stop that effort, fearing they too would be killed.

And crews on the ground soon had no choice but to turn on high-pressure hoses, blasting both the flames in the windows and their colleagues with a stream of water than can carry more than 100 pounds of pressure -- enough to knock a man down at close range.

Firefighters on the ladder and balcony appeared temporarily stunned as the streams of water struck them while going from window to window to beat down flames that would return in a matter of seconds.

They straddled the balcony one by one, shifting over the edge four stories up and into the box at the end of the ladder.

The last firefighter over the railing was blasted with water several times just to beat back the flames so close to his back and the tank of oxygen strapped to it. Soon he too rolled over the balcony railing, and the weary men made their way down the ladder.

Two of those firefighters were later taken to the hospital, Fisette due to smoke inhalation and Strunk due to a back injury. They were said to be OK last night.

Flames had by then engulfed the fourth floor. The roof soon collapsed as the fire progressed to four alarms and Donnelly and Deputy Chief John Dowling directed dozens of firefighters.

The intensity of flames would prevent firefighters from retrieving the body on the balcony for more than an hour, when they later used a saw to cut through the railing and then pull the man onto the ladder.

Police closed both Bridge Street and VFW Highway as fire trucks, ambulances and other emergency vehicles filled the lanes. Soon National Grid would cut power to the entire block, killing the lights in Dunkin' Donuts and Walgreens where residents and onlookers had gathered.

Volunteers from the Merrimack Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross arrived at the scene, trying to find those left homeless or injured.

Dozens of firefighters would continue to battle the blaze from around the building for hours, some perched atop ladders even higher than the roof as dawn arrived and investigators made their way to the scene.

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October 11, 2010