A thick blanket of smoke billowing from a blaze at an unfinished apartment building covered Dorchester as it blew across the neighborhood.
Residents were ordered to remain inside and to close their windows as the six-story, wood-framed Treadmark building burned for hours Wednesday on Dorchester Avenue bear the Ashmont MBTA station.
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“Smoke was everywhere. It was kind of hard to breath,” John Carvalho said. “It was terrible.”
Some residents used their shirts to cover their face as they returned home from work. Firefighters walked the streets to take air quality readings and told people to stay inside.
The Ashmont station was shut down and some buses were cancelled, which forced many people into the streets and into the smoke.
“I was just coming in on the bus,” said Josh Ellas, a neighborhood resident. “They stopped us before Ashmont and I’m just trying to find a way home.”
The heavy smoke poured into a man’s building directly across from the fire and made it too dangerous for him to go home. Unfortunately, he left a window open.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
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