Crews battle 3-alarm house fire in Palmer

PALMER, MA (WGGB/WSHM) - Several fire departments battled a fire at multi-family home in Palmer Monday morning.

“I was sound asleep and my dog was whining, which he never does. I got up and I see a glow through my drapes. I open the drapes of the window and I feel the heat of the flames coming from next door,” said Tim Grimes.

Grimes was just feet away from an early morning three-alarm fire in Palmer. Crews were immediately called to the area of Pleasant and Walnut Streets around 4:15 a.m. Monday. For at least an hour-and-a-half, more than 30 firefighters from seven different departments battled flames from the sides, rear, and back of the structure.

“There was some smoke coming from the whole structure and it was the first floor on the side of the building where most of the fire was coming from,” said Palmer Fire Chief William Bernat.

In video obtained by Western Mass News, the flames were so intense that some power lines melted, causing sparks to fly. Wendy Davis, who lives just up the street from the scene, was already awake when the fire started.

“I made my coffee, went on the computer, and then I heard the sirens. I put the scanner app up on my phone, and that’s when I heard the fire was here,” Davis explained.

A big reason why the response was so quick was because this property is located just a couple of hundred feet away from the Palmer fire station, which Bernat said was crucial to battling the flames.

“We’re not a staffed fire station. We’re on-call at night, so our responders have to come from home to get to the station and respond, but we had a pretty quick response,” Bernat added.

Part of the right side of the building was charred in the aftermath. Grimes called the situation heartbreaking and said the building’s owner had done work on the home to make it beautiful.

“He put so much money into that place and it was looking beautiful…just wiped out in one night,” Grimes added.

Everyone who was inside the structure escaped without injury. The cause and origin of the fire is currently under investigation.

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