Aug. 23--Six Cambridge police officers who helped rescue three from a three-alarm fire at a triple-decker at Washington and Columbia streets early this morning are being lauded for their heroics above and beyond the call of duty.
"I am very proud of these six officers for their efforts and I'm grateful that no victims of this fire were injured," Cambridge Police Commissioner Robert C. Haas said of officers Nicholas Mochi, Brendan Pasco, Eugene Bustillo, Michael Padua, Frank Lange and Steven Murphy.
The officers responded to the apartment house just after 3:30 a.m. on a report that two residents were trapped, only to discover the rear of the third floor engulfed in flames and neighbors who had managed to escape screaming that there were still people inside.
"At the same time, two more residents were frantically yelling out the third floor window for our help. There was heavy black smoke pouring out of this same window above their heads. Immediately, all six officers entered the building," states a police report on the incident.
While Lange and Murphy conducted a door-to-door search on the second floor, Pasco raced up the stairs to the third floor with Mochi, Padua and Bustillo in pursuit.
"The ceiling was covered in heavy black smoke that extended from the ceiling to approximately three feet above the floor," the report continues. "Officers Pasco and Bustillo went to a low crawl position in an attempt to enter the apartment and evacuate the two trapped residents."
Between the smoke and the intensifying heat, "Breathing became very difficult and painful," the report says.
Pasco guided the trapped residents, a man and a woman, to the door with his voice. He then brought the woman safely downstairs. Mochi then pulled the man out and turned him over to Padua to evacuate.
Lange and Murphy, meanwhile, had come across a man sleeping in his bedroom one floor below who they said "appeared confused and disoriented" when they woke him up.
American Red Cross put seven of the 12 now-homeless residents in a hotel. The others found shelter with family and friends.
Brendan Burns, 35, one of the residents who escaped 95 Columbia St. with his life, told the Herald, "This was a house full of musicians," and that even after the people were saved, emergency workers ran back inside to rescue their instruments.
"There were about 20 instruments worth tens of thousands of dollars," Burns said. "It was really quite impressive.
"The firefighters were amazing in that they went back into the apartment and rescued our instruments," Burns said. "We didn't even have to say anything. The were kind enough to move them to high ground when the apartment was flooding (due to the amount of water they put into the building), and then they went back to retrieve them for us. All instruments are safe an accounted for."
The Cambridge Fire Department said the cause is undetermined.
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