Billerica Fatal on Andover Street
Around 19:00 hours Billerica FD put companies on the road to a report of a structure fire, less then a mile away from headquarters on Andover Street.
As companies turned the corner off Boston Road they saw heavy fire blazing from a large two and a half story wood residential structure and called for the working fire prior to arrival.
Crews began the attack stretching lines and trying to hook up to the plug. But this would be start of a long hard fight.
After calling dispatch to find the location of the plug, crews had to begin the tough battle of digging it out because a private plow truck buried deep in a pile of frozen snow. With no supply establish the crews at the nozzle quickly lost their water.
With no water and a raging fire the Senior officer ordered the evac. tones to be sounded.
Crew backed out and pulled their lines and set up for a surround and drown operation once they had a supply set up.
While the crews backed out and set up, other crews searched out another plug to connect to, which they discovered about a block away in the rear of a nearby mini plaza.
Now that they had the water, crews opened up the big lines using 2.5" with blitz guns.
After several hours is the surround and drown the bulk of the heavy fire was knocked down. With the whereabouts of the homeowner being unknown crews entered the partially collapsed structure and conducted a search, and discovered around 22:00 hours they discovered the body of the 78 year old homeowner.
