Three Alarm Fire, Appleton St, off Willow

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

Woken by fire trucks at 2:30 in the morning. It's a three alarm fire on Appleton St. off Willow. Contained to the one house, plus a live wire down. From what I could glean from the scanner, everyone seems to have gotten out of the house, but some people were taken to the hospital.

Now (3:15am) at the one-hour mark, it's still an active fire, but fire command on site has declined help from an additional company, and are saying "condition the same, companies making progress."

At 3:20am calling for a "20-foot collapse zone around the building. Slate shingles coming off the room, eminent [immanent?] danger of the chimney collapsing."
(does that mean they evacuate the houses on either side, I would assume?)

From my house I can see that Willow is shut down, and the bike path, so expect a similar 4 block radius.

Comments

[josephineave.livejournal.com]

From the Boston Globe:

Residents said the right half of the house was a triplex occupied by friends in a band that practiced in the basement. The left half contained a first-floor apartment, rented conventionally, and a four-bedroom duplex above it that rented by the room on Airbnb, multiple residents said.

Link: http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/01/27/seven-people-injured-somerville-fire/kEAdXvaqba9doy4hR0bj9J/story.html?event=event12

If I read that correctly, it sounds like a boarding house, which generally isn't legal in Somerville, right? You can't just rent individuals rooms in a unit.