Fire forces residents and visitors to jump from building

By Gary Witherspoon, Globe Staff

Cornered by rising smoke and heat, at least three people jumped from a burning apartment building near downtown Haverhill overnight, residents said.

Fire officials at the scene did not know how many people were injured, but residents said two of the jumpers were taken to the hospital, and one of them had been cut in a leap from the fourth and top floor.

"He was bleeding pretty bad," said Masum Bhatti, 27, of San Jose, Calif., who also was slightly injured when he broke a window and jumped from the third floor to a landing above the front door. He said felt he had no choice. "I couldn't breath."

Bhatti said he had been visiting the third-floor apartment of his cousin, Abdul Bhatti, 22, when the building's alarms sounded. Abdul Bhatti, sitting wrapped in a white blanket early today at a community center being used as a Red Cross shelter in Haverhill, said the smoke forced him upstairs, where he was plucked from a window by a Haverhill Fire Department ladder.

He said he tried to prevent one man from jumping from the fourth floor, but the man would not listen. A woman also jumped from the building and appeared to have seriously injured a leg, Abdul Bhatti said.

At the scene, Haverhill Fire Department Chief Richard Dorden said the fire was believed to have started on the second floor in the rear of the building about 11:30 p.m.

Firefighters rescued several people from the deck above the main entrance and one person from a fourth floor window, he said.

"With the threat of a partial collapse, we came out of the building and went defensive," he said as hoses doused the burning brick structure about 2:45 a.m. A fire department dispatcher said the building was still burning at 4:20 a.m.

As the fire grew to three alarms, firefighters evacuated the burning building at 94 Emerson St. and two neighboring apartment complexes as a precaution, Dorden said.

Cheryl Cousins, 40, a first-floor resident of the burned building who sat nervously at a table at the shelter this morning as her 5-year-old daughter slept on a cot, said alarms have sounded in the building before. "We heard the smoke alarms and started running. When we ran out, the windows were popping. The only things we grabbed were our loved ones, a blanket, and a coat if we had the chance."

The Salvation Army and the Red Cross rushed to the scene to help firefighters and residents in the bitter cold.

Deb Duxbury, director of emergency services for the area's Red Cross, said they were determining the number of residents who were evacuated and in need of help, including food and shelter. Cousins and other building residents estimated 30 to 40 people lived in the burned 17-unit structure.

Firefighters from several area departments, including Methuen, Lawrence, and Merrimac, provided mutual aid, Dorden said. He did not have a dollar estimate on the damage.

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