2d fatal blaze in 3 weeks near BU

A 19-year-old college student visiting from Pennsylvania to celebrate St. Patrick's Day weekend in Boston was killed yesterday when a four-alarm blaze swept through a Brookline apartment. It was the second fatal blaze in the last three weeks in a Boston University student's off-campus apartment.

Four other men escaped the fire in the third-floor apartment on St. Mary's Street, on the Brookline-Boston line. Investigators believe the fire was sparked by hot embers from a charcoal grill on the apartment's back porch, smoldering for hours in the wooden deck and a nearby couch before bursting into fast-moving flames shortly before 6 a.m., said Stephen Sweeney, Brookline's deputy chief of fire prevention.

Two out-of-state college students had arrived about 6 p.m. Thursday and partied with three other men in the apartment, officials said. They barbecued on the back porch at one point during the night, and about 1 a.m., lit the grill again to make cheeseburgers. Using grills on wooden porches is prohibited in Brookline.

Before dawn, they were awakened by the sound of smoke detectors throughout the building and ran for their lives.

Two of the men ran into the bedroom where the victim -- identified by officials as Derek Crowl of Elysburg, Pa. -- was sleeping. They yelled to get out of the building, then ran down the stairs.

"They thought he was behind them," said Brookline police Captain John O'Leary. "He wasn't."

Heavy smoke and fire prevented them from trying to rescue Crowl, said State Fire Marshal Stephen D. Coan.

Crowl's body was found crouched next to a closet door, leading investigators to believe he had become disoriented trying to crawl out of the room and had mistaken the closet for an exit.

"Had he been able to find his way to the door, he might have made it out," Sweeney said. "But he wasn't able to. He was overcome."

While an autopsy is pending, the likely cause of death was smoke inhalation, O'Leary said.

Crowl was a sophomore at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, near his home in a town of 2,100 people in central Pennsylvania between the state capital, Harrisburg, and Williamsport. He had a twin brother, Dan, who was in Florida, their grandfather, Joe McGinley, said.

Reached by phone last night in Pennsylvania, McGinley described Crowl as a "great kid," but said the family was unprepared to comment further. "We don't want to talk about it now," he said.

A dozen BU students live in the three-story building's three apartments, but most were away on spring break, Colin Riley, a university spokesman, said. "Our heart goes out to the family of this young man. It's just an awful thing.

"It's something we just dealt with," said Riley, referring to last month's fire that killed two BU students. "Even though he is not a BU student, it does affect the university community."

Dr. David McBride , BU's director of student health services, said students may be shaken when they return to campus this weekend. "It's been a very sad year for us at BU ," he said.

Yesterday's blaze struck two blocks from the apartment that went up in flames on Feb. 24, killing Stephen Adelipour , 21, of Great Neck, N.Y., and Rhiannon McCuish , also 21, of Mashpee. A third student, Steven Boursiquot , 22, of Dix Hills, N.Y., suffered burns on 20 percent of his body and was to undergo a second skin-grafting surgery earlier this month. Boursiquot was listed last night in fair condition at Massachusetts General Hospital.

That fire was caused by a candle left lit after a power outage; it also followed a small party in the apartment, neighbors said.

Those were not the only tragedies to strike BU students. In January, Michael Robertson, 20, apparently fell to his death from his fourth-floor window in his dormitory. Last October, freshman Beatriz Ponce, 17, was hit by a car and killed while crossing Memorial Drive in Cambridge. In February 2005, students Molly Shattuck and Andrew Voluck died after being struck by a MBTA train near Nickerson Field.

"I do think students kind of link those things together in their mind," said McBride, who pointed out that BU's newspaper, The Daily Free Press, recently published a story detailing a dozen deaths of BU students and graduates since 2005. "Students identify with their institution, so . . . it takes a blow at our own sense of self and identity and the institution that we associate ourselves with."

The university is helping the dozen students displaced by yesterday's fire to find housing and will invite students to see counselors or speak to a chaplain.

Boston and Newton firefighters helped those from Brookline. Two firefighters suffered injuries described as not life-threatening, when a Brookline firefighter fell through a floor and a Boston firefighter hurt his back.

Neighbors said the fire spread quickly. In an adjoining building on Euston Street, Robert Paradise said when he awoke in his second-floor apartment at 5:15 a.m., there were no signs of fire. But a half hour later, he said, he heard what he thought was a storm.

"I looked out the window, and I saw the fire, and I said, 'Oh, my God,' " Paradise said. "I was very scared. Flames were shooting out. It was intense."

Paradise said he was among those transported to a BU student center after the fire with about 15 other people, including some students who lived in adjoining buildings. "They were traumatized," he said.

State fire codes allow grilling using charcoal, but not propane gas grills, on outdoor porches above ground level. But a Brookline ordinance bans the use of either kind of grill on wooden decks or other combustible surfaces, Sweeney said.

In addition, the property manager told investigators that the landlord had attached signs to both the second- and third-floor decks warning, "No Grilling Allowed," Sweeney said. It was unclear whether there was a sign on the first floor.

In Boston, the fire code prohibits charcoal grills on any porches and gas grills above the first floor, said Boston Fire spokesman Steve MacDonald .

Ed Comeau , publisher of Campus Firewatch, which tracks published reports of fatal fires in student housing, said more than 80 percent occur off campus . This academic year has been a particularly deadly one for students, with 19 campus-related fires to date, the most since he began tracking the data in 2000.

"A very common scenario: There's a party, there's a couch out on the front porch, smoking materials roll down and smolder, everybody goes to bed, fire breaks out. . . . And by the time they react to it , they aren't able to escape," Comeau said.

Andrew Ryan of the Globe staff contributed to this report. John R. Ellement can be reached at ellement@globe.com; Stephanie Ebbert at ebbert@globe.com.