Walnut Street Fire Displaces At Least 23 Residents

Update, 10:40 a.m.: Somerville Fire Chief Kevin Kelleher said between 24 and 27 people were displaced in Thursday morning's fire, and he said the building "will be unoccupied for months."

Meanwhile, the American Red Cross of Eastern Massachusetts said in an email it was assisting 23 residents affected by the fire, including providing temporary shelter for three families, amounting to 12 people.

Kelleher said the call for the fire came in at 5:06 a.m. and it took two hours to knock it down.

It was a "very manpower-intensive fire," he said. Firefighters "worked very hard to control this fire" and prevent it from spreading to neighboring buildings. The humid weather made the work difficult for firefighters, he said.

Kelleher confirmed there were no injuries, as of Thursday morning, reported. Fire investigators were still looking into the cause.

ORIGINAL STORY

A major fire broke out at 106 Walnut St. Thursday morning, brining in firefighters from Brookline, Boston and Everett, and displacing approximately 24 residents, according to District Fire Chief Jay Keane.

Keane and several fire trucks were still at the scene of the fire at 9:30 a.m., and Walnut Street was closed off from Medford Street to Pearl Street as firefighters continued to search for hot spots in the building. A strong smell of smoke and burned timber lingered in the air.

Firefighters responded to the fire at about 5:20 a.m., Keane said. The three-story apartment building has six residential units and borders Somerville's Edward Leathers Community Park.

Ksenia Lanin, one of the residents, said they woke up at about 5 a.m. to the sound of a fire alarm.

Noelle Nero, another resident, said when they left their top-floor apartment to evacuate the building, "The smoke was thick and gray."

"It smelled horrible," she said. Nero and Lanin said they'd experienced a couple of false alarms in the past, and at first they thought this was another.

Keane said the four-alarm fire started in the basement and spread upward.

"There's a lot of damage on the right side of the building," he said, with significant smoke and water damage to the left side of the building.

He was the cause of the fire was under investigation, and the fire department had not yet estimated the monitory damage caused by the fire.