Students lose possessions, house in Allston fire

While Max Bagus was sleeping last Sunday morning, his entire life was changing just a few feet below him.

In the basement of his apartment at 110 Chester St., a fire was starting that would destroy most of his possessions and render the College of Arts and Sciences senior homeless.

“We are really lucky to be alive and are extremely grateful to all of the firefighters who came to help,” Bagus said in an interview over Facebook. He is one of at least two Boston University students whose homes were destroyed in the four-alarm fire.

Firefighters are still unsure of what prompted the fire that reached across three apartments &- Bagus speculates it may have been a broiler or faulty electrical equipment &- but when the residents left the building they could see “fire billowing out of the basement windows,” Bagus said.

“It soon crept up the walls and up towards the roof,” he said.

The fire was large enough that at 4:43 a.m. 125 firefighters were called to the scene with at least 20 fire trucks from different parts of the city, said Boston Fire Department spokesman Steven MacDonald.

The fire, spanning three apartments, caused $500,000 in damage, MacDonald said.

Neighbors crowded the streets as Bagus and his roommates watched most of their belongings go up in flames.

“A fire of this magnitude gets people up,” MacDonald said.

Soon, the fire reached the roof, the entire apartment in flames.

“Before you knew it the sky was lit up bright orange,” MacDonald said.

Firefighters managed to control the fire, though one was injured after receiving an electric shock when a wire broke away from the building and came into contact with a ladder.

The firefighter is “doing fine,” MacDonald said.

Bagus lost most of his possessions in the fire.

“Losing our possessions was tough but we are slowly dealing with it,” he said. “We were able to salvage some clothes and other things but everything else was pretty much destroyed.”

Though they are working to replace some possessions, Bagus acknowledged this wasn’t always possible.

“Computers, books, clothes &- those are easy to replace,” he said. “But certain things just can’t be replaced. Our roommate from the [School of the Museum of Fine Arts], for example, lost almost all of his art that he’s created over the years.”

Without a home, Bagus is staying with friends across the street while he looks for another apartment.

Now, 110 Chester St. stands only as a charred, unlivable husk.

“It’s going to be several months, if not longer, before anyone is back in that building,” MacDonald said.