Though all residents of a Teele Square building were able to evacuate safely from a 4:50 p.m. fire Wednesday that persisted for more than three hours, all 43 are now displaced and getting help from Somerville city staff and the Red Cross charitable group to find temporary homes, according to an update Thursday from fire chief Charles Breen.
The three-story brick building at 1147 Broadway at Curtis Street (also known as 1135 Broadway) saw heavy fire, smoke and water damage to its third floor and roof, while lower floors suffered extensive water damage. That leaves its 32 units unoccupiable, Breen said. In addition to the apartments, there’s ground-floor retail that was all shut down Thursday, surrounded by yellow crisis-scene tape: a Blue Moon smoke shop, Teele Square Coin Laundry, the Happy Crab and Masala restaurants and Al-Aswad Dental. A liquor store at the end of the building farthest from Curtis Street is open.
It was members of the Somerville Fire Department’s Teele Square station that spotted the fire and sounded the alarm, noting they could hear a fire alarm and see heavy smoke from the third floor, Breen said. The building is across the street.
“Upon arrival on scene, firefighters encountered intense flames above the third-floor ceilings which traveled through entire underside of the building roof,” Breen said.
Five aerial ladders were extended to the roof to allow firefighter access to ventilate smoke and open holes in the roof to expose and extinguish spreading flames, and an additional five alarms were needed to bring the fire under control with teams from Cambridge, Arlington, Boston, Brookline, Belmont, Chelsea, Everett, Malden, Medford, Revere and Watertown.
A drone provided by the Medford Fire Department allowed additional aerial visibility for response coordination, Breen said.
Several firefighters received minor injuries. Two cats were located and removed to safety.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation, Breen said.
The building is across the street from “The Pit,” a lot vacant since an Oct. 29, 2011, fire that destroyed the Teele Square Laundromat. Also burned out at “The Pit” site were a nail salon, the Kee Kar Laue restaurant and West Somerville police substation. The lot has been empty for 15 years, frustrating residents, but on Wednesday, the city’s Zoning Board of Appeals heard a returning plan for an eight-story, 99-room hotel.
The owner of both properties – as well as the Masala restaurant – is Binoj Pradhan, under the Laxmi and Jharana Pradhan Trust. While the hotel project is in its earliest stages, Pradhan’s other property faces a year of shutdown and reconstruction, said an insurance adjuster on the scene to represent Pradhan. A full analysis of the financial impact may take a couple of months, the adjuster said.
