Chelsea Firefighters Trapped Searching for Children

CHELSEA, MA, October, 1984 -- Chelsea Firefighters John Chiaradonna and Louis Mojica were trapped in heavy smoke while searching for children at a fire in a balloon-frame rooming house at 133 Beacon St, Chelsea. The men were rescued by Chelsea Ladder 2, which had been removed from service due to budget cuts, and returned to service earlier that day. This was the scene of a similar fire ten years prior, where firefighters were also trapped in the illegal maze of rooms.
The earlier fire contributed to Chiaradonna and Mojica becoming trapped, as the top floor had been a total loss and was demolished from the building, and a roof had been built over the hardwood floors. This led to arduous work and delays for the roof men at the second fire in getting through the roof and floors to ventilate the smoke.
A veteran firefighter with numerous rescues to his credit, Chiaradonna continued searching for the children with Mojica even though low on air, as the sound of roof saws above them signaled the smoke would soon lift; this was a common tactic at that time. However the double roof delayed the venting, and the men were quickly debilitated by smoke, and made their way out to windows. The men recovered, and the rooming house still stands at the corner of Beacon and Mulberry Streets in Chelsea. This was John Chiaradonna's last multiple-alarm fire before retirement, and his younger brother Ernest Chiaradonna's first.

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I hope you don't mind if I shared this with the Chelsea FB Community.