LAWRENCE — The deputy fire chief said his crews were hampered by water pressure problems and a department reeling from layoffs as they battled a five-alarm blaze last night.
Neighbors and some of the 50 people forced from their apartments complained it took too long for firefighters to begin dousing the flames that engulfed a 16-unit apartment building at 65 Park St.
It took more than an hour, and help from five out-of-town departments, before firefighters had the blaze under control.
The Haverhill-based American Red Cross of the Merrimack Valley estimated at least 50 people were left homeless from the fire that broke out shortly before 6:30 p.m. yesterday in the three-level, brick-facade apartment building at the intersection of Park and Bruce streets.
Fire investigators were still sifting through the ashes late last night as they probed the cause of the fire. There were reports that somebody was soldering in the attic where the fire broke out, but that was unconfirmed.
Everyone got out of the building and no one was hurt, officials said.
Police closed off a 21-block section of the city during the height of the fire.
Deputy fire Chief John Marsh said the situation was exacerbated by a lack of manpower and equipment caused by station closings and layoffs in his department.
Pointing out that almost as many firefighters from neighboring communities joined Lawrence firefighters at the scene, Marsh said the three pumpers, two ladder trucks and 28 city firefighters there was simply inadequate staffing.
"There were 24 or 25 guys on the tax roll of other cities putting out our fire, their eight trucks helping our five trucks," he said. "The powers that be seem to think they know what's right for the city and think it will some how work out.
"But I can tell you from experience — as someone who has been on the department 35 years, that it won't work out. And it's going to get worse after the 32 layoffs," Marsh said of budget cuts that are about to kick in.
The building is at the intersection of Park and Saunders streets. Firefighters hosed down the side of another apartment building at 193 Bruce St. to keep the fire from spreading.
Marsh said he believed the building owned by Embassy Realty Trust LLC was beyond repair.
"I got to believe the building is totaled," Marsh said at the fire scene last night. "The roof is gone. The third floor is pretty well gone. Some of the second floor burned. And there's extensive smoke and water damage throughout the building. There was so much water poured on the fire that there's not a dry thing in the whole building."
Fire officials said they believed that the all of the residents got out unharmed shortly after the first firefighters responded.
Fire crews from Salem, N.H., Methuen, Middleton, Dracut and North Andover assisted in fighting the fire while fire departments from Lowell, Andover, Haverhill, North Reading and Tewksbury provided mutual aid coverage for the rest of the city.
Residents of the neighborhood complained that the Fire Department responded late and took too much time to get water to the fire once they arrived.
"It took them about a half-hour to get any water on the fire," complained Hector Sid, who lives in a third-floor apartment at 45 Park St.
Marsh said he thought the time was exaggerated, but admitted that the first units responding to the scene had water pressure problems from hydrants near the burning building. Water pressure in the area has long been a problem.
Auxiliary police Chief Jay Jackson had his entire volunteer crews directing traffic and crowds in what he called a logistical nightmare yesterday.
"It took 26 officers to block off a 21-block area," Jackson said.
"They (firefighters) were going 12 blocks on Park Street down to Lawrence Street to grab a high pressure hydrant. At 6:30 the migration of smoke drew crowds in excess of 1,500. So, special crowd police procedures had to be set up so civilians wouldn't interfere with firemen or be hurt by the high pressure hose."
Marsh said firefighters worried about potential problems in clearing the apartment building, what he referred to as a "notorious false alarm building."
Tenants in the building have grown so accustomed to alarms going off that they may not be ready for the real one, he said.
"They don't come out, and we have to spend time making sure the building was clear," he said.
"This thing had time to burn, because there were flames already coming through the roof of the building when we arrived," Marsh said.
"Because of the water pressure problems, we spent 15 minutes trying to get adequate water," he said, noting that he overheard many angry residents at the neighborhood shouting obscenities about the speed in getting the water to the fire.
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