Massachusetts Woman Killed in House Fire

Monday April 2, 2012

PITTSFIELD -- A city woman was killed and four others left homeless early Sunday in the second fatal fire in four years to strike Orchard Street.

Claudette Roberts, 59, was found dead in her first-floor apartment at 91-93 Orchard St., officials said. Three adults and one child were rescued -- uninjured -- from the other two apartments in the three-family dwelling.

Roberts' body will be taken to the state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Boston where an autopsy will be performed -- likely today, according to a statement from the Berkshire District Attorney's Office.

State and local police and fire investigators are working together to determine the cause of the blaze that they say began in Roberts' apartment.

Pittsfield Deputy Fire Chief Michael Polidoro said that when firefighters arrived on the scene shortly after 4:15 a.m., the first floor was engulfed in flames, while there was heavy smoke on the second floor. It took firefighters more than 90 minutes to douse the blaze.

Polidoro said the fire did an estimated $100,000 worth of damage to the multi-family residence, which was boarded up by Sunday evening.

One firefighter suffered a knee injury battling the fire, but he didn't require treatment, Polidoro said.

Officials with the Berkshire County Chapter of the Amer ican Red Cross said Sunday afternoon they had provided food, clothing and shelter for one of the adults left homeless by the fire. The family of three, two adults and one child, found temporary housing on their own, but were still in need of food and clothing, according to the Red Cross.

Sunday's fire was the third on Orchard Street in four years -- the second to claim a life.

On April 27, 2008, Douglas Wallace Murray, 45, was found dead on the floor of his second story apartment at 11-13 Orchard St. where the fire began. The state fire marshal's office ruled careless smoking as the cause of the blaze that left two downstairs tenants homeless.

Two years later on Sept. 13, 2010, a two-alarm blaze at 21-22 Orchard St. left 10 people homeless -- none of them were hurt.

To reach Dick Lindsay: [email protected] ,or (413) 496-6233.