Fifteen persons who lived in a 3-story Howes Street, Charlestown building have been left homeless following a Wednesday night fire that ripped through the apartment building, completely gutting it.
Screams that there was a fire on the top floor of the building were heard just after 6:30pm on Wednesday. As persons rushed to get everyone out of the building, the Fire Service was contacted.
Within minutes, the fire quickly engulfed the top floor of the mostly wooden building as the Fire Service arrived.
Firemen faced some difficulty in attaching their equipment to a hydrant that was located directly in front of the building and were eventually forced to access water through another hydrant located at the other end of the street.
A woman who lived on the second floor said she was forced to grab as much as she could save and run to safety. She said from all appearances, the fire was electrical in origin. She also said she believed the Fire Service could have done more to save the building.
The fire hopscotched through the three floors of the building, as residents and the Fire Service focused their attention on nearby buildings. The Fire Service managed to contain the blaze to the one building, but was still heavily criticised by residents, who said the firemen arrived at the scene unprepared and with equipment that could not open the hydrant that was directly in front of the building.
The Fire Service said a total of five tenders responded to the blaze with the first one arriving five minutes after the Fire Service received the first emergency call about the fire.
Fire Chief Gregory Wickham said a cause of the fire has not yet been determined. However, he pushed back at criticism of the Fire Service’s response indicating that water was sourced from the hydrants and other sources to contain the blaze.
The investigations are ongoing.
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