Five injured as fire damages Revere condo
Two occupants believed to be in serious condition
REVERE -- Netta Rossi tried the door to the hallway. She was greeted by a blast of smoke.
The spry 82-year-old woman walked onto her concrete porch and found herself some 30 feet above the ground enveloped in choking, thick, black smoke.
A voice, a hand, and then rescue.
'' 'Don't move lady,' " Rossi recalled the firemen saying. ''I'm coming to get you.' "
Rossi was one of at least eight people saved by firefighters from Revere and other communities who used ladders and ladder trucks quickly put into action amid flames roaring through 495 Revere Beach Blvd. around 4:38 a.m. yesterday.
Rossi was also one of five people taken to hospitals, two of whom were believed to be in serious condition at Massachusetts General Hospital. The identities of those injured was not released by authorities yesterday.
Rossi was treated and released from Whidden Memorial Hospital in Everett and returned to the condo that has been her home since 1992, where she recalled her rescue while still coughing from inhaled smoke.
The four-alarm fire heavily damaged a 16-unit wing of the Oceanside condominium, a brick building of 80 units that is believed to have been the first apartment building to convert to condos on the Revere beachfront, fire officials and residents said.
Revere Fire Chief Eugene W. Doherty said arriving firefighters had to first rescue endangered residents from the balconies in the front and rear of the building before giving full attention to fighting the fire itself. He said the tactical decision saved lives, but also gave the fire time to strengthen.
''It was one of those life-versus-safety issues," he said. ''I thought we were going to lose it, there was so much fire."
The cause of the blaze was under investigation by Revere firefighters and the state fire marshal's office. Doherty said preliminary information is that it started in a second-floor unit, and may have been caused by improper disposal of smoking materials.
He said a number of people were rescued from the balconies.
Corinne Testa lives in part of the condo that was not hit by the fire, but she was awakened by public safety personnel. She jumped out of bed and rushed outside. Most residents were in their nightclothes, she said. ''We just stood there dumbfounded, and looked at the smoke and fire and people trying to get out," she said. ''They were screaming, everybody was screaming. Everybody was just dumbfounded."
Imran Hossein, 19, grabbed his 12-year-old brother, Kareem, by the hand and ran with his mother, Rose, from their basement unit into the rear parking lot. Hossein saw a resident he knows only as Joe standing on a rear third-floor balcony waving a flashlight through the thick smoke, calling for help. The resident jumped onto a lower balcony where he was rescued by firefighters, officials said.
''I saw flames coming out and firefighters jumping onto" the building, he said, adding he ended up ''actually living what you see in the movies."
The condo did not have sprinklers because it is less than 70 feet in height and was built before sprinklers were mandatory in large residential buildings, said Doherty.
He said sprinklers probably would have limited the fire to one room. He said smoke detectors functioned.
Paula Modica, of Modica Associates Property Management, manages the building for the condo association. She said retrofitting sprinklers in the building, which was built in the 1960s, was ''cost prohibitive."
The Red Cross was assisting 24 residents, the agency said. Modica said a preliminary study concludes they will be able to rebuild.
Rossi still works 40 hours a week at a Braintree wallpaper store. She said that awakening to a raging fire and then clambering down a fire ladder was tiring, even to her.
''What an experience --at my age," said Rossi, who will live with her nephew until her condo reopens. ''It's too much." 