Westfield Mayor Daniel M. Knapik confers with police Lt. Lawrence Valliere and Officer David Racicot as the scene of a fire this afternoon at General Shepard Apartments, a city housing authority property occupied primarily by senior citizens. (Photo by Carl E. Hartdegen)
WESTFIELD –A person died as a result of a fire at the General Shepard Apartments yesterday afternoon.
City firefighters responded at 1:38 p.m. to an automatic alarm resulting from an alarm box activation in the high-rise apartment building owned by the city’s housing authority and primarily occupied by senior citizens.
Deputy Fire Chief Mark Devine was among the first firefighters at the scene and struck a second alarm at 1:42 p.m. when he reported there to be smoke in a first floor apartment.
Devine said later yesterday afternoon that the fire was confined to a single first floor apartment and a person from that apartment was transported to Noble Hospital where she was found to be deceased.
Although police have confirmed that a person died due to the fire, the victim has not been publicly identified pending efforts to notify her relatives.
This morning, spokesmen from both the city’s police and fire departments said that they have no additional information to release about the cause of the fire, the identity of the victim or anything else about the fire.
However, a police source did say that two other persons were transported to Noble Hospital from the apartment building although no information about injuries or the conditions of the victims was available
Nearby communities were notified and asked to assist due to the potential for a serious fire in the multistory building with high occupancy.
Ladder trucks were sent to the Thomas Street entrance of the apartment building from the Southwick, Holyoke and Agawam fire department’s to augment the city’s platform truck and engines from West Springfield and Agawam were sent to fire headquarters to be available for other emergencies while all the city’s engines were at the fire scene.
The Westfield department’s ambulances were sent to the apartment building as were ambulances dispatched from other communities.
The building was ordered evacuated but calls were received from residents on the upper floors who reported they could not exit and needed assistance.
Firefighters reported at 2:08 p.m. that the fire had been “knocked down” and contained to the first floor apartment it apparently started in.
By 2:23 p.m., firefighters reported that the fire had been extinguished and they were checking to ensure that all the residents had been evacuated.
Devine said that 75-100 persons were evacuated from the building.
The firefighters were released and returned to their stations shortly after 5 p.m. and Devine reports that, except for the first floor residents, the tenants were allowed to return to their homes.
He said that the first floor suffered smoke damage but the fire destruction was confined to the apartment where the fire started.
Devine said that one firefighter suffered a minor injury due to the fire.
He stressed that the fire remains under investigation by city police, state troopers and fire department investigators.
Deputy Chief Patrick Egloff, the city department’s lead fire investigator, reports that the three agencies are expected to jointly release the results of their investigation within two or three days.
