Around noon Tuesday, Medford firefighters were dispatched to a house fire on Effie Street in East Medford.
A neighbor, Nick Lopez, told me that he walked over after hearing a loud boom.
“I heard like an explosion, so I came out to see what it was, thought maybe it was a transformer or something, but then I looked up and saw flames and smoke billowing up, and that’s when fire trucks started pulling up,” he said.
Lopez says given the close proximity to his own home, he was nervous.
“I was a little concerned, I was a little worried hoping it wasn’t something bigger than it was – yeah, it made me really nervous,” he said.
Medford firefighters were able to get the fire under control in about 20 minutes. Fire Chief Eric Thompson says 20 firefighters, 4 engines, 1 ladder truck, and an ambulance all responded.
“Due to the significance of the fire, we were not able to go in and do an interior attack initially, so what we did was a defensive fire where we hit it from the outside,” said Chief Thompson.
Chief Thompson says the home is a complete loss.
“It wasn’t an apartment, it was a single residence home. It’s not known how many occupants lived there, but it does look like a few occupants did live there,” he added.
He says firefighters stayed out there for several hours to make sure any fire pockets were extinguished.
Firefighters are now investigating the cause of the fire.
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