East Boston residents expressed gratitude toward firefighters who rushed to the scene Friday of a rampaging casket company blaze to limit the spread of toxic fumes.
“This neighborhood has a lot of firefighters and police officers who live in this area,” said Lauren Shaka of East Boston. “I think that every day what those folks put their lives on the line for and the things they are doing is just amazing, but I think there’s especially strong ties to this neighborhood to all the first responders.
“It’s just amazing what they’ve done and continue to do to make sure we’re safe and taken care of.”
Veronica Shaponick of East Boston agreed. “God bless them,” she said. “Firefighters, to me, are heroes because they’re always first on the scene … I always look up to the firefighters. Always. I have a lot of respect for them.”
Some residents, such as Celeni Abendano, were asked to evacuate as thick smoke blanketed the Orient Heights neighborhood.
“The fire was huge. They did everything they could including risking their lives,” said Abendano of the firefighters, in Spanish. “Magnificent. Excellent work. They pushed forward, and they did everything they could. They gave everything to save what they could.”
“They did a great job,” said Pablo Justiniano of Chelsea, a foreman at New England Casket Co. “We lost everything, but everybody got out and we didn’t get hurt.”
Chris Russ of Boston said, “They put their lives every day on the line for us all the time just like cops, military, EMT, all of them.”
Richard Everett of Revere watched the scene unravel Friday and returned Saturday as firefighters continued to extinguish hot spots. “They’ve done an excellent job for what they have to do, with what they have to work with,” said Everett. “They’re heroic … they put their life on the line every day. They don’t know what they’re going into.”
Boston fire Commissioner Joe Finn on Saturday updated media on the situation. “The main concern is the instability of the building,” Finn said. “We do have some chemicals still in the building. We’re trying to identify the chemicals, where they’re located … so we’re going to be very careful how we take the building down.”
More than 125 firefighters helped knock down the massive blaze on Bennington Street, Finn said.
“Probably most difficult fire I’ve ever fought in a number of years — very difficult building. We had some challenges for sure, and the firefighters did a great job and all supporting agencies were very helpful,” said Finn, adding that firefighters had difficulty getting water pressure to attack the fire.
“This is the end of the water line for the city, so we had to supplement the pressure at the end of this city,” said Finn. “We are working off of one main, and typically you have multiple mains … and it made it difficult to keep the water pressure up to get solid streams operating.”
Mayor Martin J. Walsh on Saturday lauded the Boston Fire Department’s performance.
“They did the best job they could, amazing job of putting the fire out, keeping it contained. There was a massive amount of smoke, anyone that saw it … nine-alarm fire is one of the biggest one you can have.”
The night before, Walsh said, “This is, for me, the biggest fire that I’ve seen as mayor of the city.”
Walsh pledged to study the water pressure issue.
“Well, the one thing that we have to look at is it’s at the end of the water line, so initially the pressure wasn’t as strong as we would have liked it to have been,” Walsh said.
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