23-Year-Old Man Dies In Brighton Fire
BOSTON (CBS) – A man died in a fire at a home in Brighton early Monday morning. The Suffolk County District Attorney has identified the victim as 23-year-old Zack Thompson of Oxford, Connecticut.
Flames broke out just after midnight at the multi-family home on Perthshire Road.
When the first firefighters arrived, they found a woman trapped on the roof of the second floor after she climbed out a window on the third floor.
"I had my second-floor bedroom window open so I could hear the screaming, which is what brought me out," said neighbor Donna McIssac. "She was screaming for help, she was screaming for her boyfriend. They tried to get the big ladder up there but the fire spread so fast. It started in the back of the house. A firefighter just grabbed a ladder and put it up against the house and just got her down that way."
Cell phone video showed flames shooting from the second to third floors.
"Extreme conditions made any kind of rescue very difficult. Heavy fire. 3rd floor was ready to flash over when they got up there. So this was extremely difficult conditions," said Boston Fire Commissioner Jack Dempsey.
A neighbor just shared this video that shows a @BostonFire firefighter climbing a ladder to the roof of this #Brighton home where a woman was trapped/ rescued overnight. We're told she had climbed out of a 3rd floor window. Boston Fire confirms one person died @wbz pic.twitter.com/onLtU84GN1
— Nick Giovanni (@NickGNews) September 6, 2021
Once firefighters made their way into the home they found the victim on the third floor who was pronounced dead at the scene.
One resident and two firefighters were taken to the hospital.
Another neighbor, Fatim Kramer captured the fire on cell phone video. "There's no words. I was shaking the whole time. It's just very heartbreaking," she said.
"It was a group of young men and women that just moved in probably a week, a week and a half ago," Kramer said.
The cause of the fire, which displaced nine people, is still under investigation.