EASTHAMPTON — A Northampton Street house caught fire at about 5 a.m. Friday, crawling up the side of the home and displacing four residents.
However, the house will still be habitable and there were no injuries, Fire Chief Christopher Norris told the Gazette about five hours after the fire. Easthampton Fire was alerted of the blaze through a 911 call at 5:08 a.m. and it was deemed under control by 5:45 a.m.
The cause of the fire is under investigation, but Norris said preliminary indications show it was accidental.
Norris said the fire likely started on the first floor, crawling up the backside of the home to the second floor and expanding into the attic. The fire was contained primarily to the back porch area, Norris said.
The chief said there were six on-duty firefighters, all of whom responded from the Easthampton department — four arriving first to the fire in one engine and then two in a second engine.
Norris wrote in a statement that the firefighters began initial efforts and made sure everyone was out safely before working with Northampton firefighters to take a backup water line into the second floor and attic.
Meanwhile, two medical calls were received, requiring paramedic response — one 15 minutes after initial response to the fire and then another eight minutes later.
Luckily, Norris said each call was responded to adequately due to mutual aid from neighboring communities and the Easthampton department’s recall procedure, which called in eight off-duty fighters to respond.
“Anytime we have a significant event like this, our on-duty staffing is so limited that we rely on automatic aid which means we immediately call surrounding communities and we recall our off-duty people,” Norris said.
Norris said when older homes like the Northampton Street home catch fire, they are particularly difficult to address due to their design. He said there are a lot of “void spaces” in the walls of older homes creating more space where fire can spread, requiring extensive searching to locate.
Neighboring communities that provided mutual aid include Northampton, Southampton, Holyoke and South Hadley. State Police, the State Fire Marshall’s Office, Westover Air Reserve and the Barnes Air National Guard provided aid as well.
“I am so proud of my personnel and their selfless acts they continue to do to serve this community,” Norris said.
