Watertown home sustains extensive damage in fire

Oct. 04--Tweet

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WATERTOWN -- Two people escaped unharmed from a Tuesday morning fire that extensively damaged an apartment building at 519 Clay St.

Upstairs tenant Shirley J. Sweet said she had just put a small load of clothing into dryer shortly before the fire began at about 11:15 a.m.

"My apartment was covered with smoke and I touched the door and it was hot," she said while firefighters were making sure the blaze was extinguished.

She grabbed her cell phone, called 911 and made sure her boyfriend's brother, Terry Gebo, got out of his attic apartment.

No one was injured in the fire. Firefighters saved her cat from the burning building.

But she and four other people have been left homeless from the fire that caused a lot of fire damage in her and another upstairs apartment. The downstairs apartment suffered water damage.

When firefighters arrived, gray smoke was spilling out in the street. Fire Chief Dale C. Herman said investigators will look at the dryer since it appeared the blaze began in the second-floor room at the back of the house, where the appliance was located.

"Our guys will focus on that and see what we come up with," he said.

It was not immediately clear whether owner Kingsley H. Irwin, who lived downstairs, had insurance. The local chapter of the American Red Cross was going to be contacted to see if the people affected by the fire need help.

Down the block, another house damaged by two separate fires is boarded up and a six-foot-tall fence has been put up to keep people from entering it. On Sept. 2, firefighters were called to the scene of a suspicious early morning fire at 329 Clay St., just weeks after the first one occurred on June 16.

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