Somerville, MA -- More than a dozen people were left homeless yesterday by a six-alarm fire that gutted a Somerville building and spread to an adjacent home, authorities said.
No one was injured in the 7:22 a.m. blaze, partly because two Somerville police officers -- Michael Brown, who was off-duty at the time, and Mario Oliveira -- kicked in the door of the home at 502 Somerville Ave. and rescued three people, including an elderly man who didn't want to leave.
"He's OK, but it's sad. He loves his house," Eileen Moreira said of her husband's 74-year-old grandfather, James Pacheco, who had lived in the 2-story home since he was a child.
Yesterday, he pressed his lips to a family photo firefighters had managed to salvage, along with a few of the antique muskets he collects.
Next door, at 504 Somerville Ave., Bob LaMonica had just opened his barber shop on the first floor when he went downstairs to add water to the boiler because it was cold inside.
"I didn't hear anything, but a guy in back said he felt a big 'boom.' (The boiler) must have blown up," said LaMonica, who opened his shop nearly 27 years ago. "Within three or four minutes, the building was filled with smoke and then flames. I'm lucky to be alive."
Roughly 80 firefighters from Somerville and other local departments spent about 3 hours bringing the blaze under control, battling freezing temperatures that turned the water in their hoses to ice virtually the moment it spilled to the ground, District Chief Bill Hurley said.
