A Quincy man said he ran into a burning home on Saturday to try to save his neighbor and friend.
Shortly before noon, Eric Sprague said, he heard someone outside his Janet Road home yelling, “Call 911! There’s a fire!”
“I came running out, and a neighbor said she had already called 911, and I could hear the fire trucks in the distance,” said Sprague, 46. “I went across the street to make sure the owners were OK, and the mother was on the lawn, yelling, ‘Where’s my son?'”
“Five windows on the corner of the house were all popping,” he said. “So I threw my mask on and ran upstairs into the house. There was so much smoke, I couldn’t see the door inside. I could feel the heat from the door, and I knew not to open it. I was scared, but I’ve known these people my entire life. I went to school and Cub Scouts with the son (Jeff Litif), and now we do shipping and receiving work together. I was just trying to help a friend.”
Sprague came back outside and ran to a side door, he said, but it was locked.
“I asked the father if there was any fire on the first floor, and he said no,” Sprague said. “So I went to go back in to try to get upstairs, but the son came outside through the side door.”
Firefighters arrived and found heavy fire on the front and left side of the two-family, wood-frame house at 20 Janet Road, Deputy Fire Chief Paul Griffith said. But all five residents had made it out of the building by then, he said.
“Everybody came running out,” said Jeff’s father, Ronald Litif, 87, who lived there for 48 years. “I was outside, and the whole window on the second floor blew out.”
The fire went to a second alarm, Griffith said, but about 35 firefighters managed to knock it down within about a half-hour.
Jeff Litif had tried to put out the flames on the second floor before firefighters arrived and was treated for minor burns and smoke inhalation at South Shore Hospital, Griffith said.
Three cats, one rabbit and one ferret died in the blaze, which caused an estimated $300,000 in damage, he said.
“My heart breaks for them,” said Eric Sprague’s mother, Daina Sprague, 73. “It’s so sad.”
The fire started on the second floor, Griffith said, but the cause was under investigation yesterday.
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Quincy man runs into burning home to try to save neighbor - Boston Herald
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