HAVERHILL — What began as a typical Saturday morning for residents of a multi-family home turned into mayhem after a fire broke out at 63 Pecker St., destroying the brick building and the possessions of four families living there.
Just after 8 a.m. yesterday, Esther Garcia, 29, was in her second-floor apartment preparing a bottle to feed her daughter Crystal, 1, when she smelled smoke. She woke her husband, Anibal Rivera, 34, and they rushed out of their apartment with their daughter, their son Anibal, 3, and their pet dog.
“We didn’t have time to grab anything,” Esther Garcia said. “All of our new furniture is gone ... our new bed, our new television, money we had been saving for an emergency, all of our paperwork, everything,”
Anibal Rivera said his family had moved into the building about three months ago and now have nowhere to live. He said an elderly woman who lived in the first-floor apartment with her daughter got out safely as well, but believed the woman’s dog perished in the fire.
Esther Garcia said none of the smoke detectors had gone off. At least none that she could hear, she said.
At the same time Garcia was readying a bottle for her daughter, Lyn Salter, 46, was a bedroom in another second-floor apartment she shares with her daughter and her grandchildren Syrus, 3, and Elijah, 1, and her daughter’s fiance, Jason Cameron, 41.
“I was having coffee in my bedroom when I smelled smoke,” Salter said. “At first I thought it was an electrical problem so I started unplugging things. Then I opened the door to the kitchen and there was smoke a foot deep.
“When I saw that smoke I knew something was seriously wrong. None of the smoke alarms were going off but I knew I had to get out, and to get out as fast as possible and as safe as possible and to get everyone out.”
Salter said she screamed for her daughter and rushed out a door to a porch with the children but had to turn back, as flames were coming up the porch stairs from the first floor.
“We ran back in and to the front hall and down the stairs,” Salter said. “Everyone was already out of the building and in the street.”
Jason Cameron, who was at work at Polartec in Methuen, got a call from Salter saying their house was on fire.
“Lyn called and said the house was on fire but everyone got out safe,” Cameron said. “I left work, got in my car and rushed back to Haverhill.”
He said he hugged his children when he arrived at the scene of the fire and credited Salter with saving his children, who he said had been asleep in a front room.
“If it wasn’t for this woman I wouldn’t have my family with me now,” he said. “Time is so crucial, so so crucial to get out. They teach you things, safety things, but when something like this happens you have to get our really fast.”
Cameron said he and other neighbors noticed a strange odor in the hallways for the past week. He said he believes the gas company was called.
“I don’t know if anything was being done about it, but everything is gone,” he said. “All the pictures, all the memories ... I’m just glad my children are OK along with all our neighbors, all our loving neighbors.”
Among the items Cameron lost in the fire was a “priceless” collection of rock and roll memorabilia, including photographs he had taken of rock bands, autographed photos, and a computer he was using to write a book about rock and roll legends.
“It’s a good thing my jacket of legends was not in the house,” he said about a jacket that had been signed by numerous rock and roll stars.
Salter said no sooner had residents of her building escaped when area residents poured out of their buildings offering assistance. “They took us in,” she said. “All of the neighbors opened their doors to us ... They gave us coffee, dressed us, gave us blankets and phone numbers to keep in touch. And we’re hoping for the Red Cross soon.”
The Red Cross did respond yesterday to help the 16 people displaced.
Deputy Fire Chief Brian Moriarty said when firefighters first arrived they were told there were people trapped on the second floor of the building. He said firefighters conducted a primary search of the first floor, then the second floor — but because of the intense heat they had to back out.
“Accountability checks outside showed that everyone was accounted for,” Moriarty said.
Police Officer Craig Lambert said a 911 call was received at around 8:20 a.m. and on the way to the scene he could see flames coming from the back of the building.
As firefighters were pouring water onto the burning building, the water was running off and down a sloping back yard where it cascaded over an embankment and flooded a parking and delivery area behind CAP Auto Parts on Winter Street. Firefighters tried to unclog a storm drain in the middle of the paved area but were having a difficult time. Water was rushing through a rear delivery door to the auto parts store and was flooding an area where parts are stored.
The cause of the under investigation.
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