A school and a home lost in separate blazes

By George P. Hassett

Two fires ripped through Somerville this week, one ravaging a 35 year old school and the other destroying a home occupied by the same family for more than 100 years.

An electrical problem in a room heater caused a fiery explosion on the Glen Street side of East Somerville Community School Sunday at 4:39 a.m., according to Somerville Fire Chief Kevin Kelleher. The result was a charred, flooded building full of soot.

An electrical problem in a room heater caused a fiery explosion on the Glen Street side of East Somerville Community School Sunday at 4:39 a.m., according to Somerville Fire Chief Kevin Kelleher. The result was a charred, flooded building full of soot.

“It’s a mess,” said Deputy Fire Chief James Hodnett the day of the fire.

Rooms 106 through 110 and 206 through 210 were the most severely damaged and the site of the fire, according to investigators. The fire started on the first floor.

Sandy Sentner’s son and daughter go to the East Somerville Community School. She said their classrooms are 106 and 206.

“To think they sit in the same place where the bulk of the explosion happened is just horrific,” she said.

On Monday the School Committee unanimously passed Superintendent Anthony Pierantozzi’s recommendation to cancel classes at the school for at least the rest of the week and move kindergarten students to the Capuano School, grades 1 through 5 and Unidos grades 6 to the Edgerly School and grades 6 through 8 to the Cummings school. Bussing will be provided to East Somerville Community School students relocated to the Cummings School.

Pierantonzzi said keeping classes intact and as close to the East Somerville neighborhood were the two main goals of his relocation plan.

“We’re going to be forced into some situations we would rather not be in,” he said.
Ward 1 School Committee member Maureen Bastardi lives down the street from the school. She said she received phone calls from 77 constituents by Monday night asking about the status of the building.

“It’s been devastating,” she said. “The community is still trying to comprehend it. A whole side of the building is unsalvageable. The gym is under water. The auditorium, the only one in the city beside the high school one, is underwater. There has been so much lost.”

Furniture and material will be moved from the Powder House Community School, closed since June 2006, to the Edgerly and Cummings for displaced East Somerville students.

The school at 115 Pearl St. is one of the city’s biggest and housed almost 600 students before the fire. School officials had been planning to celebrate the schools 35-year anniversary before Sunday’s fire.

Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone was at the scene of the fire by 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning, he said. He said the city is committed to rebuilding or replacing the East Somerville Community School, though it will be a difficult task.

“I don’t know how much this will ultimately cost. I know it will be in the millions I just don’t know how many yet,” he said.

The fire at the school on Sunday was the second devastating blaze to hit the city in four days. On Thursday the home at 9-11 Harvard Place caught fire for still undetermined reasons and spread rapidly throughout the house, Kelleher said.

“The home was old, it was dry, it had no insulation so when the fire got up in t he attic it really went to town,” he said.

With the home in flames, Somerville police officers Alex Capobianco, Derrick Dottin and Steven St. Hillaire arrived on scene. As they tried to gain access into the house they could hear voices coming from inside. Capobianco and Dottin entered the home but could not see through the smoke.

Navigating their way around corners and down hallways in darkness they finally felt Bryan Thibeault and Elaine Thibeault laying on the floor passed out. Capobianco, Dottin and firefighter Sylvester Moore carried the two out to safety with the help of St. Hillaire. 

Acting Police Chief Robert R. Bradley commended Capobianco and Dottin for their courage but also said the two men simply did “what they get paid to do.”

“When a cop does something bad everybody wants to say, ‘Oh all those cops are no good.’ When they do something heroic like these guys did everyone says ‘Thank god we have our boys in blue.’

They did a great job but they were doing what they get paid to do. Any other guy in this department is willing to do the same in that situation,” he said.

The fire completely destroyed the home and firefighters demolished what little remained of it next day.

Elaine and Bryan Thibeault are hospitalized in critical condition. Elaine Thibeault’s granddaughter Kate Thibeault said both are beginning to recover. However, she said, nothing was salvaged from the house, including Christmas presents.

“Everything was lost,” she said. “My grandmother had grown up in that house.”

Jay Colbert, president of the Somerville Firefighter Union, commended Capobianco, Dottin and Moore for their actions but said the fire’s toll was worse because Engine 4 was not in service.

Engine 4, out of service for four years, would have been the first engine on the scene, Colbert said.

“Those people would have been saved quicker and the damage to the house would be less if Engine 4 were in service. There were 9 fewer firefighters on the scene because it’s out of service. The people in that neighborhood are less safe,” he said.

Colbert said if 12 more firefighters are added to the city’s force of 141, Engine 4 could be opened and the surrounding neighborhood would be safer.

“Cambridge has 285 firefighters, we have 141, we’re understaffed,” he said.

Curtatone said Colbert’s charge that Engine 4 could have made a difference in combating the fire at 9-11 Harvard Place is inaccurate.

“That was an extremely aggressive fire. It spread in seconds. The two fire engines arrived on the scene in 3 minutes and 35 seconds. The national standard is 5 minutes. We have a well equipped, well trained fire department. His comments are overboard,” he said.

Curtatone said there are no plans or proposals to put Engine 4 back in service full time.