A fire consumed a Waltham home on Friday night, leaving two residents and their dog without a home.
The Waltham Fire Department received a call at 8:06 p.m. for a fire at 648 Waltham Boulevard, and responded to the scene with four firefighters, eventually receiving reinforcements from Mansfield and Allumette Island departments.
Upon arrival, Waltham fire chief Larry Perry said he realized the call had come late and the fire had already been burning for quite some time.
“The original building was almost completely consumed when we arrived,” he said.
“The fire was spreading through the shrubbery and the brush and the forested area behind, and it was going toward other buildings at the same time, so we had to fight it on a number of fronts.”
He said they were fighting the fire for several hours and finally managed to put it out around 4 a.m. on Saturday morning.
“It’s heavily damaged,” he said of the house. “The floors are very definitely damaged. There was fire in the basement as well, so there’s probably a lot of damage down there.”
Perry said everyone in the house at the time – Lynn Dempsey, her husband Dan Amyotte and their dog – was evacuated safely.
Friend Kath Morris confirmed on Monday morning the couple are safe and are being sheltered by Dempsey’s sister and cousin.
Morris, who volunteers together with Dempsey at Animal Aide Pontiac, started a GoFundMe for the victims to allow them to buy a trailer where they can stay temporarily.
“Some money was already given in Campbell’s Bay,” she said in a message. “We are raising the final $5000.”
As of 3 p.m. on Monday, the donations on the GoFundMe page totalled $2,310.
Perry said while his department is leading an investigation into the cause of the fire, none has been determined yet.
