LAWRENCE — A wall of fire so fierce it tore through a city block like the buildings were made of paper. Flames so hot they melted the side of a firetruck. Forty families, dressed in pajamas and in their stocking feet, scrambling to find shelter on a 12-degree January morning.
Now, a year after the seven-alarm blaze leveled 14 buildings and forced 180 people from their homes, causing $4 million in damage, things are starting to return to some sense of normalcy.
A three-story building on Parker Street with apartments and a convenience store is in the works. Around the corner on Market Street, a family is readying to move into a new Habitat for Humanity home, possibly as soon as next month.
"We're encouraged," said Myles Burke, city inspectional services director. "In only a year, we are seeing some significant progress in that whole section."
But not everybody's rebuilding. Ditching previous plans, the owners of a former Parker Street nightclub, where the Jan. 21 fire started, are now selling their property. A "For Sale" sign recently went up at the 8,000-square-foot site that formerly housed the Millennium Nightclub.
At the time of the fire, the nightclub was being renovated by owners Geraldo Torres and Nereyda Trempe of Methuen. Due to the overwhelming damage, detectives were never able to pinpoint the exact cause of the blaze.
After the fire, Trempe said they wanted to rebuild a restaurant with four apartments above it. But those plans fell apart and the property is now being sold for $250,000, Burke said. Neither Torres nor Trempe could be reached for comment.
The city is still reviewing plans to reconstruct a building at 46 to 58 Parker St. The three-story multifamily and commercial building will stretch down Parker Street to the corner of Springfield Street. Burke said it was the largest building consumed by last year's fire on that block.
Once completed, a market will be on the first floor. People with disabilities who are able to live independently will move into the rest of the building, including handicapped-accessible apartments on the first floor.
"It's pretty much a rehab of the whole building," Burke said. "They certainly had quite a loss there."
The blaze also destroyed two Merrimack Valley Habitat for Humanity homes that were under construction. Three duplexes and a single-family home are now being built there.
"A couple (of homes) are up and at 50 percent done, which is quite an accomplishment where they rely on volunteer workers," Burke said.
One of the homes will be ready for occupancy in late February or early March, said Larry Sharp, executive director of Merrimack Valley Habitat for Humanity.
"Everyone is really proud of the job we've done there," Sharp said.
In the year since the fire, a greater emphasis also has been placed on improving sections of the city's antiquated, corroded water supply system.
At-large City Councilor Roger Twomey is leading a charge to improve the system, starting in crowded neighborhoods such as Parker Street.
A fire in those types of areas can easily spread to buildings and homes built an arm's length apart.
Twomey said he became concerned about water supply after witnessing the Parker Street fire and a fast-moving blaze at Turn Hall on Park Street a week before. Finding an adequate water supply to attack both blazes took too long, he said.
Firefighters rely not just on pressure but also volume drawn from water pipes to douse flames. At the Parker Street inferno, firefighters stretched hose 3,500 feet — more than a half mile — in order to get the water supply necessary, fire Chief Peter Takvorian said.
"That's a huge amount of hose," he said. "And if you remember that morning, the wind was blowing fiercely and we needed a good volume of water for our firefighting efforts."
Local and state money for such a water project is scarce. But Twomey views the problems as a homeland security issue and hopes money will be available at the federal level to replace and clean out corroded city pipes, many of which are more than 100 years old.
"I'm hoping we can do something to upgrade the system," Twomey said. "I feel very strongly about it because it's a public safety issue."
After the fire, the city spent $170,000 demolishing charred buildings. Liens were placed on affected properties until the insurance money was recouped.
Looking back a year, Burke said he felt the city made a wise decision putting the money up front for demolition. While a block was destroyed by the fire, it was quickly cleaned up, he said.
In another year, he expects even more progress.
"You could do the same story next year and the area will be totally built out," Burke said.
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