CHRIS LOWREY
WALTHAM Aug. 20, 2018
An early morning fire caused extensive damage to a home on Dupuis Street in Waltham.
Nobody was injured in the fire, although the home was heavily damaged by fire and water.
“The structure is still standing, but it’s been heavily damaged,” said Waltham Fire Chief Larry Perry.

Firefighters got the call just after three o’clock in the morning and the Waltham, Mansfield and Fort Coulonge Fire Departments responded. A total of 17 firefighters were on scene, working till past noon on the blaze.
According to Perry, the fire presented a unique challenge.
“The biggest part of the fire was in the roof,” he said. “Then, somehow, it spread into the basement. It seemed to bypass [the first floor] through a hollow in the wall.”
Perry said that the metal roof complicated matters and made it difficult for firefighters to access the fire through the ceiling.
To make matters worse, a downed hydro line meant that firefighters had to wait before they could put water on the blaze.
“Until that got cleared away by hydro, we had to do a workaround,” he said. “Not a straight-ahead kind of fire.”