Community rallies around 22 residents displaced by fast-moving fire on Munjoy Hill

A blizzard was whipping outside her apartment and Louisa Goldman was only half-awake.

An unfamiliar rustling and flashing red lights had roused her and her boyfriend, Henry Shroder, as they slept in their Portland apartment. It must be snowplows, she thought as he walked across the bedroom to look out the window.

“I cracked the blind and there were flames on the other side of the glass,” Shroder said.

Within minutes, Goldman and Shroder were standing outside with their two roommates, watching in shock as the three-story townhouse they shared was engulfed in flames.

The intense fire on Munjoy Hill on Jan. 29 destroyed two townhouses at Island View Apartments and sent four people to the hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation. One building with two townhouses is a total loss and will be torn down, according to the company that manages the complex. Six other units were damaged and a total of 22 people were displaced.

State fire investigators believe the fire started with either a heater or smoking material, but while the cause is officially considered undetermined, it appears to have been accidental, according to a spokesperson for the State Fire Marshal’s Office, which continues to investigate the blaze.

The fire began just after 3 a.m. in the midst of the biggest storm in Portland this winter. Goldman, Shroder and their two roommates had moved into the townhouse on North Street in August and adopted a kitten named Carmela, named after Tony Soprano’s wife in “The Sopranos.”

The others were asleep when Shroder noticed the window blinds were glowing orange and yellow. He and Goldman yelled for their friends and smoke detectors started blaring as they rushed to get Carmela in her carrier. One roommate, 24-year-old Tucker Wanzer, ran outside in gym shorts and a T-shirt.

“None of us were ready to be outside in the cold,” said Shroder, 24.

The Portland Fire Department says the townhouses on North Street did not have sprinklers but fire walls between buildings prevented the fire from spreading. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer

As the roommates got out, the family next door ran from their home. Huge plumes of black smoke followed them.

“That was the holy crap moment,” said Wanzer, who didn’t even have shoes on.

The roommates called 911, but firefighters were already on their way from the station down the street. Within three or four minutes, the entire back of the building was engulfed in flames, Schroder said.

A video of the fire recorded by neighbors and posted on social media shows those first terrifying moments. People barely visible in the dark parking lot rush away from the building as thick black smoke gives way to columns of bright orange flames.

“Oh my God. I hope everybody’s out. Oh my god,” the man recording the video says. “Please get everybody out of there.”

“Something happened and something happened quick,” a woman says in the background.

Outside, residents shout to each other, asking if everyone was out. A stream of water from a firefighter’s hose is illuminated by the flames as sirens echoed across Munjoy Hill.

Deputy Fire Chief Chad Johnston said the day after that he was stunned to see how far the fire had advanced when he arrived at the scene.

“Those people literally had seconds to get out,” he said. “I’m sure that fire chased them out the front.”

The Portland Fire Department said after the fire that the townhouses did not have sprinklers but fire walls between buildings prevented the fire from spreading. The city adopted an ordinance in 2010 that requires sprinklers in all new homes and townhomes. Island View was built in 2002.

Calls to 911 indicated the fire might have started in a garage before spreading up into the townhomes.

City inspection records for the property do not show any prior life-safety concerns at Island View Apartments. The complex passed its last routine fire inspection in September 2016. Inspection records show that issues with trash, a cluttered apartment and an elevator repair – which had prompted inspections in August and December 2021 and last month – had been resolved.

The day after the fire, city officials posted the damaged units unsafe for occupancy because of fire and water damage. Building management has since applied for a permit to demolish the two buildings most heavily damaged by fire, the first step in the process to rebuild them, said Nancy Reno, vice president of Housing Management Resources, the Massachusetts-based company that oversees the complex.

Residents of the other six apartments were able to get in last week to remove belongings, but they will not be allowed to move back in until power is reconnected and other repairs are made, Reno said. A few residents chose to move out and have been refunded their security deposits. Reno said management is in contact with all residents who were affected and the company is paying to house three tenants in a hotel.

“We’re trying to help them out for as long as we can,” she said.

COMMUNITY STEPS IN TO HELP

Within hours of the fire, friends and relatives of displaced residents started online fundraisers to help them replace their belongings and cover expenses as they looked for housing. GoFundMe campaigns set up for individual families and sets of roommates have raised tens of thousands of dollars. The Munjoy Hill Neighborhood Organization’s campaign has taken in nearly $10,000 to be divided among all those impacted by the fire.

Three Dollar Deweys hosted a happy hour fundraiser last week to help people displaced by the fire. At least three work in local restaurants and breweries.

Chris Bettera, owner of Po’ Boy & Pickles, launched a GoFundMe for Shroder, who has worked for him since last year, and his roommates. During the pandemic, Bettera has witnessed how generous his customer base can be and knew they’d be eager to help. The campaign has raised more than $14,000.

“Everything they had was burned and destroyed. They were really fortunate to have gotten out on time,” he said. “Your heart just goes out to them. They lost their favorite shirt, all of their favorite things.”

Shroder and his roommates say they are grateful for the support from people they know and from strangers who felt compelled to help. They are staying temporarily at a friend’s house in Yarmouth.

“We all lost everything. It’s a really long process to replace passports, medications and all sorts of stuff. It’s a real ordeal,” Shroder said.

It’s also a challenge to find a new rental unit in a tight housing market, but the roommates hope they’ll be able to find somewhere they can live together before they have to move out of their temporary house.

Goldman, 23, who works as a harm reduction educator and is slated to start medical school this fall, said she’s heartened by the support of so many people and thankful that she was able to get her kitten out of the apartment. She was devastated to hear that her neighbors lost pets.

She has gone through many emotions in the weeks since the fire. The first day she was numb, then shook by the realization that they were close to death. She’s wary of anything fire-related and is more sensitive to sounds when she’s sleeping. Last week, she was “freaked out” and barely slept after a smoke detector went off when they were cooking, she said.

“I think I’m over the initial numbness of it all,” she said. “I’m fortunate to have the resources I have and to be able to start rebuilding.”

SOLO EL PUEBLO SALVA AL PUEBLO

For months, Maria Sanchez’s home at Island View Apartments was the base for Presente! Maine’s food brigade, an all-volunteer effort to provide boxes of food to hundreds of families in Portland and Lewiston-Auburn who have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, including many immigrants who work in seafood processing and agriculture.

Each week, in the garage and parking lot, a contingent of volunteers that included Sanchez and her daughter Crystal Cron, who leads Presente! Maine, measured out portions of rice, beans, potatoes, onions and other ingredients to give to more than 200 families. The nonprofit organization also works in the Latino community to develop leaders, advocate for systemic reforms and provide COVID-19 vaccines and testing.

Sanchez, who leads trauma-sensitive yoga sessions for violence survivors and is known for her advocacy work, lost her home in the Jan. 29 fire. She escaped along with her daughter, Cron’s partner Edier Ramirez and their two young children, who had been staying with her that weekend.

In the immediate aftermath of the fire, their friends and colleagues rallied to help meet their immediate needs – and, when the family was ready, they reached out to the community, said Sarah Brajtbord, who is the operations director at Presente! and helped start a GoFundMe campaign that raised more than $100,000 in four days.

The people who are helping with the campaign and other donations are not surprised that, for this family, the community would embody the idea that “solo el pueblo salva al pueblo” (only the people save the people), a saying often repeated by Cron.

“People know their work, trust their work and believe in their work. We see this as an opportunity to support a family that has offered so much support over time,” said Christina Ocampo, the programs director for Presente! Maine. “People are showing up because they’ve showed up for them in the past.”

When the fundraising campaign started, Angela Stone of the Portland nonprofit Maine Needs didn’t hesitate to share the link widely. She said Cron is “a force – and what she made happen with Presente! Maine’s food brigade is, in my opinion, one of the most remarkable efforts that anyone in Southern Maine pulled off during the pandemic.”

“If you’ve ever known someone who asks very little for themselves but gives all of themselves to helping others, that’s Crystal Cron. To think that her house burnt down is heartbreaking. If we have the chance to show Crystal and her family the solidarity she has shown thousands of families during the pandemic, we should welcome that chance,” she said.

The Sanchez-Cron family has found temporary housing and is taking time to privately heal and recover.

“It’s incredible to see the outpouring of support that’s a reflection of the support the family has given to the city for so many years,” Brajtbord said. “Everyone deserves to be cared for and loved in this way.”