Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1766
Excerpts from Fire From the Sky By Evan McLeod Wylie
From the July 1988 issue of Yankee.
new.yankeemagazine.com/article/fire-sky
June 26, 1987
Near Lonsdale Street a security guard saw a plane with its engines sputtering drop out of the mists. The young people on the corner saw it skim low over Semont Road, strike the roof of the Byrnes house on Lonsdale Street, slam into the Tully house next door, and hit the sidewalk in front of the Tully and Knauber houses. A tremendous fireball spewed a fountain of burning fuel over the houses and the cars parked in the street.
Instantly, Lonsdale Street was transformed into an inferno. “It didn’t even look like a fire scene,” recalls a witness. “It looked like a battlefield. Saigon! Cars in the street were burning. Flames 60 feet high were engulfing the homes. My first thought was: Nobody can escape this! Everything is going!”
Off-duty police officer Mark Hayes, living on nearby Wells Avenue was awakened by what sounded like thunder. He grabbed his clothes and police radio. Reaching the street, he saw the mushrooming fireball and called in, “Fire on Lonsdale Street!”
Police officers Wayne Williams and Dennis Rorie wheeled onto Lonsdale and beheld a scene that reminded Rorie of “something right out of the movie Apocalypse Now.” Leaping from their cruiser, they raced into homes, found people stumbling about in their night clothing, and led them outside. Hayes, off-duty policeman William Walsh, and teenagers from the comer joined them, banging on doors and shouting, “Get up! Get out!”
George and Bridey Knauber were awakened by the blast and ran from their bedroom to the porch door of their second-floor apartment. Opening it, they were met by a sheet of flames. George slammed the door and took his wife downstairs. They ran down a narrow alley to the street. As they dodged around a flaming car, it blew up behind them.
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