TEWKSBURY -- For a moment, it looked like a scene from a war zone, said Bob Gosse, an off-duty Tewksbury firefighter of the blaze early Sunday morning. He was first to spot the fire and spring into action.
Gosse said he had dozed off while watching TV in his recliner, and decided to head to bed, when he was jolted awake Sunday about 1:30 a.m by a series of loud pops and booms.
He rushed outside and saw "flames glowing from underneath the garage, and flames running up to the house," he said.
He ran across the street to his neighbor's home at 7 Sullivan Parkway and pounded on the side door. But that was already in flames, so he tried pounding on all the other doors and windows in a mad dash to wake the family and save their lives.
Fire Chief Michael Hazel said the family, Paul and Kelly Costello and their two children, had just gotten home after a St. Patrick's Day celebration that night before going to sleep. The mother and kids were sleeping upstairs and the father was downstairs when the fire broke out. They all got out safely.
The fire had been burning in the basement for some time before it was detected by Gosse, Hazel said. The fire, which was electrical, was not suspicious, he said. Last year, another house across the street also experienced an electrical fire, but neither fire is related, he said.
Firefighters knocked down the fire within an hour, Hazel said. But the blaze destroyed the house and the family's two cars. The house was declared a total loss, valued at about $450,000.
Police Detective Peter Regan said that after investigating the cause, "it appears that it's shading toward an accidental fire."
Hazel added that smoke alarms didn't go off, because they were in the living room. A smoke alarm also was found in the basement, but it's not clear whether it was installed or working at the time of the blaze.
"They are very fortunate that there were neighbors who saw there was a problem," Hazel said.
At one point, various propane tanks, automotive airbags and gas tanks started exploding in quick succession from the carport attached to the burning home.
Then, one of the two cars parked there broke away, rolled downhill in reverse and rammed into a utility pole. Although it didn't knock the pole down, it led to a chain reaction in which a power line sparked and slapped down to the ground, igniting a section of picket fence nearby.
"Airbags were blowing up. It was crazy," said Gosse. "It was like a little war scene."
He sat with his wife Shannon, his mother Marie, and his daughter Nikole, on the steps outside his home yesterday afternoon as investigators sifted through the wreckage.
"There was fire on the pole, on the fence, in the garage, fire in the house, and there was fire dragging down the street," he recalled.
"I heard a huge explosion," said Shannon Gosse. "It was scary. It was like it was straight out of a movie. If you were a director, I don't know if you could have directed it any better."
She, along with Gosse's mother Marie, pointed to a trio of empty fire hydrants on the edge of the lawn that her husband used to try to extinguish the house fire and the smaller fires that cropped up that night. He didn't get any sleep the rest of the night, he said.
Gary McLaughlin, director of dispatch services for state police, was there to help, as were state Fire Marshal officers. He said Costello works as a state-police dispatcher, and everyone was happy that his family was not hurt and was able to find a place to stay with family in Andover.
Sunday afternoon, the carport remained a pile of blackened, charred rubble. On the road, McLaughlin pointed out a smear of burned tire rubber, marking the path where the truck hit the pole. The power went out that night, Gosse said.
Hazel said the fact that the truck hit the utility pole was also lucky, because it prevented the truck from crashing into nearby homes, possibly causing more damage.
"The most important thing is human life -- everything else can be replaced," said Gosse.
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