Breaking--Nine Alarm Fire in Cambridge, MA

patch.com ^ | 12/03/2016 | Mike Caraggi

[Pearls Before Swine]

There is a massive nine-alarm fire blazing in Cambridge near Berkshire and York Streets.

Nine alarms are the most that can be called. Firefighters from communities well outside the area being called in. Cambridge police are asking that the public avoid the area.

Multiple buildings are on fire, including a church. At least one building has reportedly collapsed.

Fire companies from all corners are on-scene to assist, including from Boston, Newton, Waltham and Wakefield.

[Flick Lives]

A family member just bought an old Boston house with K&T wiring. They wanted to do some renovation, so that meant bring it up to current code. It was quite expensive, but I told them do it, renovation or not.

Like I said, 70 year old wiring is scary, the K&T stuff, while robust for what it is, has had decades of folks potentially monkeying with it, and is not in any way to be trusted with modern household devices.

That's money well spent to fully replace the wiring in those old houses. Most of those old knob-and-tube only had a 4 or 6 circuits in the house. Completely inadequate.

[Myrddin]

I think these fires may be motivated by insurance fraud.

[Pilgrim's Progress]

As many as 2 dozen may be dead . . . building has violations - last used as a warehouse - people living there without permits.

The owner is going to jail for a long, long time.

[Daffynition]

Beer summit. Cambridge MA. “the Cambridge police acted stupidly.”

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2012/04/17/van-jones-beer-summit/

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

I think there were also fires in Georgia.

Something is going on.

[PlateOfShrimp]

Lived right around the corner in grad school back in the day. It was a working-class neighborhood, heavily Portuguese, back then.

[jocon307]

“What’s going on?”

I think things are very, very dry. The NJ weatherman keeps talking about how we need rain. And I talked to a friend in TN, she says they are no where near the fires, but she’s a little nervous because things are super dry by her. They only had rain 4 times since August, which is kind of bad when you think about it.

[metmom]

OK. Too many major fires.

This is NOT coincidence.

[jocon307]

These are some amazing pictures. This is like the fire that happened out in Queens during Superstorm Sandy, but that was because the firemen couldn’t get to the houses due to the flooding.,

[Pearls Before Swine]

I remember a Portuguese restaurant that served a pretty spicy fish stew up on Cambridge Street, myself. But that’s going to my personal Wayback Machine.

[VTenigma]

I believe a lot of those mutual aid call outs are for towns to send units to cover stations where apparatus is out working the fire.

[M. Thatcher]

I’ve heard of nine, not ten.

Tenth alarm struck according to local news.

[Lisbon1940]

>> Is that a muzziehood ?

MIT has some Muslim engineers.

[Pearls Before Swine]

I meant, before now.

[rdl6989]

It smells like muslims.

[Tijeras_Slim]

WOW, densely packed. This summer we evacuated for a few days due to a nearby wildfire. But being this is NM, it burned 18,000 acres and only destroyed 12 homes.

[HandyDandy]

The very first Legal Seafoods was located at Inmans Square. Not there anymore.

[unread]

"Fires in TN, CA and now MA. What’s going on?."

Must be those blasted Amish...!

[Maudeen]

Thanks for your take on it.

[matt04]

IIRC, Boston only goes to nine alarms. They can special call additional engines and ladders to “make” a 10th or higher alarm