By O’Ryan Johnson
The Boston Herald
NEWTON, Mass. — A three-alarm blaze ravaged a historic mansion in Newton yesterday afternoon after a fire sparked outside the home near a grill and raced up the walls into the attic, the town fire chief said.
The blaze was hard on firefighters as well: Three suffered back, knee and shoulder injuries and were hospitalized with non-life-threatening wounds, Newton Chief Joseph LaCroix said.
He said firefighters from Boston Ladder 11 were briefly trapped by flames on the third floor, when a portion of the ceiling collapsed. A specialized team of jakes raced through the flames to free the trapped firefighters, LaCroix said.
The 11 a.m. blaze appeared to have crawled from the ground to the roof inside the walls, LaCroix said.
“When it got to the attic it just blossomed,” LaCroix said.
Lawrence and Lisa Cahill, the owners of the stately Greek revival home built in the mid-1800s, are vacationing in France, neighbors said. Their home, known as the Brackett House, has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1986.
The couple’s adult son was home at the time the fire started. Approached at the scene, he told a reporter he did not want to talk about what had happened. LaCroix said the cause of the fire is under investigation.
Neighbor Molly Korner said she’s lived next door to the home for 18 years, in what was originally the burned manse’s carriage house. She said the historic mansion is filled with classic accents, such as walls covered in embossed leather.
“It is lovely inside,” she said. “It was built in the 1860s. . . . It’s so sad to see it like this.”
LaCroix estimated damage to the home at about $1 million. The front half of the house appeared badly damaged from the first floor to the gables, which jakes ripped open to vent the blaze.
Copyright 2010 Boston Herald Inc.