[Scan-DC] RE: Wonsocket, RI Fire Pics

[John Bacon]

Here is the link to my Album of pictures I took of a 2 family house fire.

http://www.bitzphoto.us/photo/thumbnails.php?album=2 

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Courtesy of - Woonsocket Call
WOONSOCKET — A beloved family pet was rescued from a fast-moving fire
Thursday on Summer Street in the North End. No people were reported injured.

Firefighters were dispatched to a three-story, two family tenement house
with an address of 261 and 263 Summer St. minutes before 5 p.m. 
The house’s owner, 46 year old Anna Sacoto, arrived home from work early
that evening only to be met by her 13 year old daughter, Monica, outside.
Sacoto’s daughter was home with a friend at the time the fire broke. 
“I heard a kid screaming downstairs,” said Monica Sacoto. “He was screaming
that he wanted his mother and there was a fire. Then, my dog started
barking. I grabbed the little dog and ran outside.” 
Monica left the tenement with her mixed terrier, named Baby, while her Jack
Russell terrier named Duncan was already outside. A 10-year-old boy, who was
home alone on the first floor, also managed to escape from the house to
safety.
“I was upstairs and I heard a boy yelling from outside,” said Sacoto’s
friend, 13-year-old Nicole Davison. “I looked for the cat and couldn’t find
her. I then ran outside.” 
“I never thought this would happen, never,” Sacoto said.  A lot of animals
were inside and outside the house at the time of the blaze. A bird on the
first floor and a goldfish on the second are believed to have perished in
the fire.
A teary-eyed Anna Sacoto feared for the safety of her cat, which was
believed to have still been inside the building at first. 
“I hope she’s hiding in the back of the house,” she said. “I wish I just
could have saved her.” 
The tiger striped cat, named Pumpkin, was in fact later located in the back
of the house by firefighters. 
The three-year old feline was given oxygen by firefighters at the scene and
later handed over to its very relieved owners around 6 p.m., an hour after
its disappearance. 
“They found the cat, they found the cat,” said Sacoto. “I can’t believe it.
They found her. I’m so glad the cat was found.” 
“They gave her oxygen apparently,” said Domenic DiBattista, 12, cousin of
Monica Sacoto. 
“We did get a cat out and we did resuscitate it,” said Woonsocket Fire Chief
Kenneth A. Finlay. 
Eight rabbits, which were also outside in cages in the backyard at the time,
were carried to a neighbor’s yard. 
Ten-year-old Caitlin Brackett, a fifth-grader at Kevin K. Coleman Elementary
School, was home next door with her uncle and brother when she heard
screaming. 
“At first, I heard this kid screaming and told my uncle,” Brackett said. “I
heard an alarm. I looked at our fire alarm and it wasn’t going off. I looked
outside and the porch (next door) was on fire. I told my uncle and then ran
outside.” 
Brackett’s uncle, J.P. Saumur, immediately called 9-1-1 and ran outside with
Brackett’s four-year-old brother, William. 
“There were a lot of flames coming from the first floor porch,” Saumur said.
“I saw two girls running out of the house. They had a carrier of sorts with
them. They came by me screaming.”
Firefighters continued to hose down small bursts of flames around 7 p.m. at
the two-family dwelling. They also kept a sharp watch on the tenement’s
roof.
“We’re putting holes in the roof to open it up,” said the city’s fire chief.
“Because this was house with a balloon frame construction, there’s a lot of
places the fire can hide. We’re trying to find it, but right now it’s moving
faster than we are.” 
According to the fire chief, the blaze moved fast throughout the tenement
due to the available air circulating throughout. 
“The fire had a lot of air to grow,” Finlay said. “If it had been a little
colder or warmer and the windows were closed, the fire probably wouldn’t
have been so fast. All of the windows were open.”
While the fire completely consumed the front façade of the building, the
estimate of damage is unknown at this time. The fire’s origin and cause also
remain under investigation. 
“We’ve heard a lot of stories (about the fire) and we’re not ruling any of
them out,” Finlay said.
Hundreds of spectators lined the street behind police barricades to watch
firefighters working to control the blaze. 
“When you witness something like this, you realize how important our
firefighters are and at the same time, it’s devastating for the families,”
said state Rep. Lisa Baldelli-Hunt, who lives nearby. “The most important
thing is that everyone is safe.”
Personnel from all of the city’s fire five stations responded to the Summer
Street fire, as well as Woonsocket police. 
The American Red Cross was on scene Thursday to assist the two families. 
“We will give them whatever they need right now,” said Steve Pechie, a
representative of the American Red Cross. 
Monica Sacoto will begin eighth grade next week at Woonsocket Middle School.
All of her possessions, including clothes and supplies for school, are
believed to have been destroyed.
Anna Sacoto, an employee of a Providence law firm, purchased the building
nearly four years ago. She is also the mother of a 17-year-old, who was away
on vacation Thursday.
The Sacoto’s resided in the tenement’s second and third floors. The first
floor tenant for the past six months, Donna Kovacich, was not home at the
time of the fire.