(Courtesy of Gloucester Daily Times)
At least one person died in an early morning blaze in West Gloucester that gutted a single-family residence. Another man is still unaccounted for. Police and fire officials declined to discuss details of the investigation taking place this morning after a fire that destroyed 439R Western Ave., except to confirm that one victim had been found. This morning around 9:30 a.m., firefighters and Gloucester police officers were waiting for officials from the Essex County District Attorney's office to arrive to continue the investigation.
The fire began sometime around midnight. Around 12:15 a.m., the Fire Department received a call from neighbors who had been awakened by several loud bangs. When they looked next door, they saw the house engulfed in flames. "We could see the fire from the Joan of Arc statue," said Deputy Fire Chief Philip Dench this morning at the fire scene. "When we got here, the whole building was completely involved. We went right to an exterior attack -- we couldn't have gotten inside if we wanted to." According to reports, the single-alarm blaze lasted for several hours and melted the siding and cracked the windows on a nearby home.
The building, which is owned by Gloucester resident Joseph Walsh, was being rented by two men. Dench said the Fire Department had been making every effort to ascertain the whereabouts of the second man.
This morning, firefighters were standing by watching for hot spots. Crane crews also arrived early this morning to begin dismantling the charred remains of the building. "We intend to go through this stick by stick," Dench said. The cause of the fire is undetermined and is being investigated by both the local fire inspector and the state fire marshal's office.
This is the second major house fire in two weeks. Around 3 a.m. on Monday, Feb. 14, a four-alarm blaze destroyed a three-family home at 38 Millett St. No residents were hurt in that fire, but some firefighters suffered minor injuries due to the icy conditions. A cause for that fire has not yet been determined.
