Brockton, Massachusetts: Five Rescued From Five-Alarm Fire on Spring Street, 11 Taken to Hospitals

Five people were rescued from a burning triple-decker in Brockton, Massachusetts, on Monday morning after a five-alarm fire tore through the multifamily home at 303 Spring Street. Eleven people were taken to hospitals, including four firefighters and two children, Fire Chief Brian Nardelli said. By Monday afternoon, Nardelli said none of the injuries was serious, and The Boston Globe reported that all 11 were in stable condition.

The Brockton Fire Department received multiple calls at about 8:21 a.m. on October 26, after smoke was seen in the area of Highland Street. Crews traced the fire to 303 Spring Street, and as the calls came in, dispatchers were already hearing that people inside the house could not get out. Residents were hanging out of windows when the first crews arrived, the chief said. Two people jumped from windows before firefighters got there, and firefighters brought five more people down from the second floor on ground ladders. WCVB reported that other residents climbed out a window on a rope made from bedsheets.

A mayday call on the second floor

At one point, crews got a report that a child might still be trapped on the smoke-filled second floor. A firefighter searching for the child ran low on air and called a mayday, as he was trained to do. A rapid intervention team was sent in, and the firefighter broke a window and got himself out onto a ladder. More than 70 firefighters went into the building, the Globe reported, and Brockton received mutual aid from Abington, Avon, Holbrook, Stoughton and Whitman. The fire was controlled in about an hour.

Smoke was the main injury among the residents, the Globe reported, and no one appeared to have burns. The chief said the two people who jumped may have minor bone or muscle injuries. At the morning press conference, Nardelli said the rescued residents were all walking after they came out of the building.

Staffing, the chief said, saved lives

Nardelli credited the department's staffing for the rescues. Conducting rescues over ground ladders is one of the most difficult things firefighters do, he told reporters at the scene, and Boston 25 News carried his shorter version of the same point: staffing saved lives today. The chief told The Enterprise that added hiring has changed outcomes in the city. From 2014 to 2022, seven people died in fires in Brockton, he said. Since then, there has been one fire fatality.

Cause ruled accidental

By later Monday, investigators had an answer on the cause. Jake Wark, a spokesperson for the state fire marshal's office, said the fire was accidental and began near an electric fireplace in a first-floor living room, the Globe reported. Earlier in the day, the department had said only that the fire appeared to have started on the first floor and that the cause was under investigation.

Building inspector Frank Gazerro said about a third of the house was damaged and that it will not be demolished, the Globe reported. The Red Cross is helping two families and is looking for a third, spokesperson Kelly Isenor said. Carlos Furtado, the son of the building's owner, told The Enterprise that his mother and his brother were inside when the fire started and that police told him they were okay, with a little smoke. Maria Lopes, a resident who was away during the fire, put it plainly to the Globe: "We are alive, so it's not that bad."