CHELMSFORD, MASS. (WHDH) - All residents were able to get out of a Chelmsford home that caught fire Friday morning, thanks in part to a Good Samaritan who helped alert them.
“Anybody would have done the same thing, that’s what I hope anyway,” said Donald Brier, who rushed inside the burning home on Quigley Avenue around 6 a.m. to evacuate those who were still sleeping inside. “(I) turned the corner and saw the smoke and, you know, what’re you going to do?,” he said “You can drive by or you can stop and do what you should do.”
Brier said he had to think quick, waking up residents and later running back to his vehicle to get a crowbar to break open windows and doors as the fire grew.
“I just kept yelling and then people started coming out,” he said.
Tom Riccio said his parents and his siblings lived inside the multifamily home with tenants. He said everyone was OK, but were devastated to see the childhood home destroyed.
“My mother had called me in hysterics, saying ‘the house is on fire,’ and I was in disbelief,” Riccio told 7NEWS. “I was distraught. It’s just a total loss – I don’t even know what to say. They have nothing now.”
Riccio called Brier a hero for his efforts – helping residents escape a massive fire that took crews hours to put out.
Video shared with 7NEWS showed the building’s front porch fully-engulfed in a wall of flames at one point.
“I wouldn’t advise running into a fire, but, I mean, if you can help get somebody out, do what you can. It’s the right thing to do,” Brier said.
By midmorning, the home’s walls were heavily-charred while the roof had caved in. Speaking with 7NEWS, the Chelmsford Fire Chief said the structure was unstable and would have to come down.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
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