Firefighters rescued a man as a quick moving fire swept through a multi-family home in Weymouth Landing leaving several homeless.
Four communities assisted Weymouth in battling the three-alarm blaze that gutted the 100-plus year-old, Victorian-style home at 90 Commercial St. late Saturday night. There were no injuries.
Fire Chief Robert Leary said that a compressed wire overheated and sparked the fire resulting in more than $280,000 in damages.
A male resident on the first floor called 911 just after 11 p.m. reporting that the kitchen cabinets were on fire. The dispatcher told him to get out of the building and sent four pieces of apparatus to the scene.
According to Leary, the Engine 3 crew was first on the scene and was met with heavy smoke pouring from the dwelling.
As firefighters were preparing to enter the building, they spotted an elderly man with his head sticking out of a second floor window.
The firefighters grabbed a ground ladder and placed up to the window.
"When they put up the ladder, he (the resident) backed out," Leary said. "All they (firefighters) had was smoke coming out the window."
A resident directed firefighters to stairs at the right side of the building that they used to make their up to the second floor where the man was found standing.
"They found him at the top of the stairs," Leary said. "He was helped out."
The resident was unhurt.
All the other six to eight tenants had safely escaped.
Some of them went to the nearby Dunkin
