Police: Six-alarm Roxbury fire may have been set in failed suicide attempt

By John M. Guilfoil, Brian R. Ballou, Meghan Irons, and Martin Finucane, Globe Staff, and Matt Byrne, Globe Correspondent

The six-alarm fire that destroyed a Roxbury apartment building early today, injuring 14 people and leaving dozens homeless, was set by a 28-year-old Medford man in what appeared to be a failed suicide attempt, Boston police said.

Mohamed Abdul Jabar faces a number of charges of attempted murder and arson after the fire, which was reported at about 12:48 a.m. at 71 Westminster St., police said in a statement. A law enforcement source briefed on the investigation said fire officials are looking at the possibility that the suspect accessed a gas line inside one of the apartments and lit a match.

Firefighters plucked terrified residents from the building’s windows and ledges as the fire blazed, making more than a dozen rescues. In one harrowing scene, a young child was dropped from the third floor into the arms of a waiting firefighter.

Fire department spokesman Steve MacDonald said the fire was sparked by an explosion on the first floor which sent heavy fire shooting through the three-story building.

He said 10 residents, three firefighters, and one police officer were taken to area hospitals, suffering mainly from smoke inhalation.

Shortly after the fire broke out, a man went to Boston Medical Center for treatment of burns. He told medical personnel that “he blew up his house,” Boston police Superintendent-in-Chief Daniel Linskey said at the scene.

The man, who police later identified as Jabar, was transferred to Massachusetts General Hospital and is being treated for second-degree burns to his face, hands, and arms. His injuries are non-life-threatening, said Boston police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll.

Fire investigators were not able to get inside the structure this morning because it was too unstable, MacDonald said, adding that it will probably be at least a year before some residents can return.

MacDonald said the blast blew out windows, caused walls to collapse, and caved in sections of a newly installed roof equipped with solar panels. About 15 people were rescued from apartments because the front entrance on Westminster Avenue was blocked by heavy fire.

“The firefighters did a great job. There were many people trapped,” he said. More than 160 firefighters battled the blaze.

The building is a block-long 3-story apartment building between Westminster Avenue, Waldren Road, Wardman Road, and Walnut Park, with several different entrances at different addresses. The units most affected were at 71Westminster, and, 3, 7 and 9 Wardman, said MacDonald.

A total of 50 units have been evacuated, said Noah Maslan, the director of real estate for Urban Edge, a nonprofit community development corporation that has owned the building since 2000.

The city opened a shelter for displaced residents at the Tobin Community Center in Mission Hill.

Herbert Lamb and his wife, Judith, were in a third-floor apartment with their 6-year-old grandson and two adult relatives when the building was rocked by a loud explosion that was quickly followed by a thick pall of dark smoke flooding inside.

The Lambs kicked out the windows of their apartment. Judith Lamb said she grabbed her grandson, Xavier Lara, and held him out the window to keep him away from the smoke and the growing fire. Before firefighters could raise ladders to reach them, she said, she dropped her grandson to the firefighters waiting three stories below.

“I had to drop him out the window,’’ she said. “The firemen caught him.”

The firefighter who caught him was Lieutenant Glenn McGillivray, one of the first on the scene.

“We had heavy fire blowing out the first-floor windows, heavy smoke pushing out windows on floors two and three, and they were nine people hanging out of windows and on ledges,” McGillivray said, describing what he saw when he arrived on scene.

Suddenly, he said, he saw Lamb holding Xavier out the window.

McGillivray reached his arms out.

“I knew she wouldn’t be able to hold him until we got help, so they dropped him, and I caught him in my arms from the third floor,” McGillivray said. “Then we got a ladder over to get the woman out.’’

He added: “Thank God I caught him. I’ve never had to do that before, and I hope I never have to do it again.” McGillivray was among the injured firefighters -- he had his back checked out after making the fortunate catch.

Judith Lamb and her family climbed to safety down fire ladders.

Herbert Lamb said that during the drama, he believed he and his family would not make it out alive. At one point, he said, he tripped and fell down as he was trying to steer his adult stepdaughter toward a window.

“I fell down and I thought if I died, at least I don’t let my daughter die -- so I pushed her toward the window,’’’ Herbert Lamb said.

Lieutenant Tom Blake and his men from Ladder 29 saved four people dangling from windows.

“They kept coming, one after another,” Blake said, pointing toward a smoky opening in the building. “We took four people out that one window,”

Blake said that these kinds of fires are extremely rare.

“I’ve been on 21 years, and I’ve never been to a fire with more rescues. Ever,” he said.

Firefighter Greg Conlan, also of Ladder 29, said that the building’s child-proof screens made some of the rescues difficult.

“Getting through the screens was the most difficult thing – they were child-proof and also firefighter-proof,” Conlan said. “We just did our best to open them any way we could.”

The pace and volume of rescues amazed Conlan, who has been on the job more than 20 years.

“All my years on the job, I’ve never moved a ground ladder to five different windows.”

Deputy Chief John Hasson, the on-scene commander, praised the work of the firefighters in the rescues.

When firefighters arrived, they tried to attack the fire from the inside, but part of the outside wall collapsed, and by the time they had rescued everyone from the windows, the fire was raging out of control, and firefighters had to resort to defensive operations, battling the fire from outside and essentially conceding that the building would be lost.

“The initial arriving fire companies did a tremendous job,’’ Hasson said. “They pulled out around 15 people and caught a baby. They did a great job.”

John R. Ellement and Mike Bello of the Globe Staff and Globe correspondent Aram Boghosian contributed to this report. John M. Guilfoil can be reached at jguilfoil@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @globe_guilfoil.