One seriously burned, 9 displaced after Quincy house fire

QUINCY, Mass. — A Quincy man suffered serious burns and nine people are displaced after a house caught fire on Friday.

Firefighters responded to Winthrop Street around 4 p.m. as thick, black smoke covered the Houghs Neck neighborhood in Quincy.

"My heart goes out to them," said Vaughn Driscoll, a neighbor. "I’m getting a little emotional because I would not want to go through what they’re going through right now. Just being the neighbor on the other side of the fence from the back yard it’s pretty dramatic."

"When the fire blew out the second-floor window, the siding took off pretty good and that, combined with the wind, was a pretty serious condition," said Quincy fire captain Steven Baylis.

Neighbors quickly jumped in to help.

“We found clothes for the little boy, he wasn’t wearing anything because he had just changed,” said Patty Nichol, a neighbor. “And [the] father was burnt, so they came in, we gave him clothes, my husband’s clothes.

"It was terrible, it was awful," Nichol added. "You couldn’t even breathe; the smoke was so bad."

According to neighbors, the burn victim said the fire started after he tried to use a battery booster to jumpstart his motorcycle and it exploded.

Officials, however, have not confirmed the cause, but the building has been deemed a total loss.

"[The] last thing you need in the holiday season is a dramatic thing like this," Driscoll said. "It devastated their family and everybody that’s attached to them."

The street was blocked off for hours as crews battled the fire and put out hot spots.

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