Telegram & Gazette
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NORTH BROOKFIELD, Mass. — The town’s assistant fire chief is being credited with saving two people from a blaze Saturday morning including a woman who was “literally hanging from a (second story) window ledge,” Fire Lt. Darin G. Anderson said.
The two were inside a three-story house at 151 School St. when fire broke out in the second-floor living room just before 7:30 a.m.
Lt. Anderson said Assistant Fire Chief Brad Gannon was the first at the scene.
Chief Gannon saw a man on the roof of the farmhouse and a woman dangling outside a second-floor window.
The lieutenant said Assistant Chief Gannon quickly located a ladder and was able to help the man on the roof, then the woman outside the window, make their way down. Both were uninjured.
Six other occupants got out of the dwelling on their own, he added.
The residents’ names weren’t immediately available, he said.
Lt. Anderson said the fire, which produced heavy smoke and flames, was confined to the second-floor living room. He said units from the North Brookfield and West Brookfield fire departments and the North Brookfield Rescue Squad were dispatched to the scene.
The fire was brought under control in about 15 minutes.
The fire appears to have started in a couch and firefighters are leaning toward careless disposal of smoking materials as a possible cause.