Firefighters made a quick stop on a fire Saturday night in 7 Bellingham Ave. that eventually took down the home, making it a total loss.
“The companies made pretty good work of it and kept it from spreading,” said Chief Tony Carli. “It’s a very tight neighborhood. It was tremendous work by everyone and there were no injuries…It could have been a lot worse in that neighborhood, especially at that time of night. Oddly, it was a vacant home, which is odd in this housing market. From our investigation, it seems it was tied up in an estate and that’s why it was vacant. We brought in the State Fire Marshal and our investigation team to look at it. It is at the moment still under investigation.”
Chief Carli said it was a total loss, and around $700,000 worth of damage at least.
The two-family home went up in flames around 12:30 a.m. on Saturday morning, with multiple calls come in from the neighborhood. Fire crews under Deputy Joe Hickey arrived to flames clearly visible coming out of the home. The fire started in the back on the first floor, and quickly moved up to the roof – making it impossible to save completely when fire crews arrived.
Mutual aid from surrounding communities did report in, and Deputy Hickey was able to keep it to a second alarm.
“It looks to be a total loss,” said Carli. “The fire seems to have started in the first floor in the rear of the home and went to the roof.”