The Boston Globe detailed the Lowell (MA) apartment fire that killed seven.
The tone, the first alarm, came in from a cop named Borden Zwicker on routine patrol, just before 4 a.m., and the firefighters from Engine 2 and Ladder 2 ran instinctively to the pole on the second floor of the Branch Street firehouse. They followed each other down, wordlessly, like paratroopers jumping out of a plane.
The engines were roaring, the red lights flashing, and even before the doors to the old firehouse were opened, Lowell Fire Captain Brett Dowling realized that someone was outside, pounding on those same doors.
He wore only underwear and a look of sheer terror.
“My family’s trapped!” he screamed at Brett Dowling when the doors opened. “My kids!”
Tom Brady could have thrown a football from the firehouse and almost hit the burning apartment building just up Branch, on the corner of Queen Street. That’s how close it is.
“We could see the flames as soon as we pulled onto the street,” Dowling said. “We were still pulling our gear on while we were going down the street.”
Even before Engine 2 drove that 100 or so yards, Dowling struck a second alarm. He knew they needed more ladders, more engines, more firefighters, more everything.
Dowling and Firefighters Dave McNeil and Marc Poirier decided to pull Engine 2 down Queen Street, because the back porches of the three-story building were fully engulfed, and they needed to get water from a 2-inch hose on them ASAP.
But as soon as they rounded the corner, they screeched to a halt: A man was lying in the middle of the street, writhing in pain.
“He had just jumped from one of the windows,” Dowling said.
Read more of the story here http://bit.ly/1qqDrA1
