By CHRISTINE PHELAN, Lowell Sun Staff

It's the fire that never grows cold.

Long after the flames were doused, the damage tallied and the residents resettled after the Curtis Hill condominium blaze which devastated the 38,400-square-foot, four-story building, left two dozen families homeless and inflicted more than $3 million in damage five months ago the fire still burns.

For those who saw and subdued it, images still flicker. Capt. Bob Lown recalls the ghostly striping of the hallway walls as the lathe the two-by-fours inside scorched through the plaster. Lt. Dana Cocozziello, first on the scene, remembers the physical and mental toll of the 13-hour ordeal.

Assistant Chief Will Mercier recalls the synchronization of 10 area fire departments that laid more than a mile of hose to a hydrant in 15 minutes flat.
And though Curtis Hill comes up in spare moments, it hasn't loosened its grip. At a recent practice burn in Nashua, every firefighter queried could precisely recall where he was that fateful night of
June 13.

Tyngsboro Fire Chief Tim Madden recollects the almost perfect convergence of factors that made this blaze the most powerful in town history. It began from cigarettes snuffed in a third-story flower box. Madden quickly moved to sacrifice one part of the building in order to save the other. That strategy meant that the blaze already brewing for more than an hour and a half before the first 911 call was contained despite a maddening lack of access to water.

Ten area departments had a hand in fighting the five-alarm fire under Madden's guidance, testing the skills and stamina of more than 70 firefighters who used an estimated 750,000 gallons of water about 25 pools' worth.

Madden also remembers three days of insomnia after the blaze, agonizing over remembered details and what, if anything, might have been different.

"It is a giant reference point," Madden says of the Curtis Hill fire. "Everybody's got a story from that night. And the truth is, it made everybody realize that this kind of thing can happen and we need to be ready, from the chief on down the totem."

Firefighters say that, while the Curtis Hill fire still has lessons to offer, it also reinforces why so many people volunteer their time and energy in the first place.

On a drizzling Saturday at the end of October, more than 50 firefighters from Tyngsboro, Groton, Dunstable and Pepperell convene to practice a series of burn scenarios in a squat concrete building just over the border at the Nashua Fire Department's training ground.

Designed to keep skills sharp, the exercises play out five different scenarios for the nearly all male group one woman is present to address. The occasion also brings back memories of Tyngsboro's historic blaze.

If the Curtis Hill disaster did anything, many at the practice burn say, it reinforced that mutual aid the practice of assisting neighboring towns in fire and rescue capacity was in healthy working order. Others say it offered a lesson of experience and showed the savvy of those in charge.

But what remains Curtis Hill's greatest legacy is that these firefighters mostly volunteers are around for the right reasons.

"I think firefighters love it, no matter what," says Lt. Chris Mahoney, a 10-year veteran of the Tyngsboro Fire Department. "There's such a love for the job because we're volunteers. I mean, this isn't what's paying the bills or putting food on the table."

David Barker of the Dunstable Fire Department agrees. "We aren't doing this because we're making a living," he says. "To me, the best thing of this is that I see all the faces I'm going to work with. It's familiarity."

Curtis Hill also strengthened kinship among firefighters, others say, and showed companies the power of working side by side.

"There's a certain amount of craziness that you have to have for the job," says Mercier, Tyngsboro's assistant chief. "But when something goes wrong, there's a brotherhood that's one of the toughest things around. We know we can depend on one another."

Chief Madden, for his part, circles back to the practical. "The guys need to get a level of experience, and there aren't, thankfully, enough fires to practice on," he says.

Experiences like Curtis Hill, as awful as they are, boost familiarity with incident command, rescue techniques, and the people and assets of neighboring departments. Ditto for practice burns.

The one good thing to come out of disaster, Madden says, is the readiness and skill to address the next one.

"You have to have all those experiences that make a difference," Madden says. "That's why Curtis Hill will be good for the guys here. Whatever it takes to get it done, you've got to get it done."

Jim Straitiff, Pepperell's deputy fire chief and a third-generation firefighter, agrees. "People will still talk about it for a long, long time," Straitiff says of Curtis Hill. "And there's a fear that's still there, but it's like (firefighting) is a part of you. You know what it can do and what you can do."

ARTICLE 2

Into the fire

A battery of firefighters from Tyngsboro, Groton, Dunstable and Pepperell many of whom were present at the Curtis Hill condominium fire in Tyngsboro in June practiced their skills late last month in a controlled burn in Nashua. The group invited a Sun

By CHRISTINE PHELAN, Lowell Sun Staff

NASHUA What it comes down to in the end is a fight against instinct. First, the most obvious and basic one: to turn and run fast. Then there's the gear itself, 40 pounds or more, strapped to my back and shoulders, and cinched to my hips. There is no grace in this suit, which gives me an undignified clomp, like a duck. Rarely used muscles ache, and even standing still requires effort.

Once it's tethered to my head, the mask seals me in, steaming on the inside to block my view, completely covering my nose and mouth. That's held in place by another tight-fitting stocking that's snug around my neck, and finally, a heavy brimmed helmet. I feel a sort of strange intimacy with myself, tucked inside as I am. No part of me touches the outside, now. And nothing comes off quickly
And finally, there's the fire itself. It grows once we're inside, straining toward the ceiling from the hay bales on the floor, belching out dense, black smoke, which spills down walls, fills the room. Crouching is my instinct, so, getting with the program, I stand. And just as quickly, I can't see anything. It's the inky dark of nightmares.

On my knees, I can see the temperature layers forming in the room coolest at the bottom, hotter and smokier going up but even the view down low quickly dims in this warren of burning palettes and hay.

Pat Sands, the volunteer firefighter who brought me to the second floor of this sooty concrete box, is crouching next to me but is barely visible, save for his jacket stripes and the flash of his PAS device, which monitors movement and squawks in protest if he's still for too long.

And then there's the heat. Pat says it must be 400 or 500 degrees inside, hotter higher up enough to bake bread, roast a turkey, scorch potatoes. It's then that I realize I can't rub my eyes, wipe my nose or anything. The gloves neutralize any dexterity I might have been able to muster.

I push these thoughts aside and remember: no instinct. Breathe steady. By now, it's gotten louder, from the crackle of flames to the shuffling and yelling of the firefighters struggling with the hose. They're big and awkward, don't move quickly, but breathe hard.

The lack of grace is forgivable in this strange interior world when I bonk helmets, or yell or spit, or can't stand up and have to be hoisted. Emerging after 35 minutes inside, I'm rustled out of the mask, the tank, the suit, handed a bottle of water, and someone gives me the spot where he was sitting. They peer at me carefully.

I'm breathless from this experience and sweaty and reverent. Even later in the day, the smoke still lingers in my nose and on my clothes. It has stuck fast in my hair, which has been shampooed and rinsed several times since.

Someone spoke of the brotherhood that's forged in all that soot and ash. I think I've gotten a glimpse of exactly that. There is nothing solitary in the drama of a burn. It's all about fighting it, surviving it, together.

Thanks again to the Lowell Sun for permission to feature
this on our site.