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Roslindale boy hailed as hero for saving family from midnight fire

E-mail|Link|Comments () May 24, 2009 02:08 PM

Jack Gilbride, 7, walks through debris at his Roslindale home which burned in a fire on the previous night.
Dina Rudick/Globe Staff

By Matt Collette, Globe Correspondent

Smoke detectors woke up 7-year-old Jack Gilbride in his second-floor bedroom just after midnight this morning as a fire raged upstairs -- but not his 76-year-old grandfather, who slept in a bedroom on the first floor of their Roslindale home. Jack, shouting to his father and sister to get outside, bolted down the stairs and into his grandfather's apartment.

Today Jack is being called a hero by his family and neighbors.

"I ran downstairs really quickly," Jack said. "I didn't want to ring the doorbell because I thought that would take too much time, so I just opened the door and shouted."

Jack's grandfather, Joseph Michaud, lived beneath Jack's family's unit in the brow, two-family home on Farquhar Street. Michaud, a war veteran, lost an eye during the Korean War and is legally blind. He has had heart problems and spent most of today undergoing tests at a nearby hospital.

Jack's 42-year-old father, John, 4-year-old sister, Theresa, and uncle, Kevin, who also lived in the downstairs apartment, all escaped unharmed.

The fire broke out in the second-floor kitchen -- directly above Michaud's bedroom -- when a candle left burning started a blaze at about 12:40 this morning. Power had been cut to the neighborhood the last night, neighbors said, as NSTAR workers fought a nearby manhole fire.

Firefighters got the two-alarm fire under control in about 15 minutes, and stayed on the scene several hours to ensure it was out, said Boston Fire Department spokesman Steve MacDonald. The fire caused an estimated $100,000 in damage, he said.

Jack's mother, 40-year-old Debra Gilbride, spent last night in the hospital as a volunteer test subject in a university-administered sleep study. She knew nothing about the fire until she returned at 6:30 a.m. to find her home scorched and her son hailed as a hero.

"He's good in tough situations. He doesn't get nervous," she said. "I wouldn't expect anything less."

The Gilbrides plan to spend the next few nights in a hotel as they look for a permanent place to stay. Neighbors brought linens and hand-me-down clothes to the Gilbrides, who gathered outside their home as crews began the lengthy cleanup process. The Red Cross has reached out to assist the family, MacDonald said.

Jack said he learned fire safety from his family and at Holy Name Elementary School in West Roxbury, where is in the second grade. He said doesn't consider his actions to be anything more than what anyone would have done.

"I'm just thinking happy stuff because I helped all those people," he said. "I didn't want them to get burned, so I woke them up.