4 escape blaze

Updated: 04/08/2010 11:45:50 PM EDT


Deputy Fire Chief Alan Sparks looks over the remains of the... (Ben Garver / Berkshire Eagle Staff)


LEE -- An intense, early morning fire on Thursday gutted a two-family home, sending four people to the hospital -- three of whom escaped through second-story windows. An electrical problem sparked the fire.

The blaze at 183 Center St. broke out around 4 a.m. with the first floor engulfed in flames and spreading fast, according Raghav Pathak, one of the residents. The 16-year-old was asleep in his second-floor bedroom when he discovered the duplex was on fire.

"I woke up and smelled something and saw flames shooting from the house," said Raghav. "I was scared as the flames would reach up and get me."

Raghav then called 911 to report the fire and his parents who were at work. He said the smoke was so thick he and two family members who were home at the time couldn’t reach the first floor to escape.

Pathak eventually got himself, his sister Ritika Pathak, 10, and grandfather, Dhavampal Pathak, 74, visiting from India, to flee the raging fire with the help of Lee firefighters who put up a ladder to the second floor.

Lee Fire Chief Ronald Driscoll said the girl and elderly man were taken to Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield and treated for smoke inhalation. Pathak said his father, Navneet Pathak, 45, was also transported to BMC for a burn to his arm he suffered trying to get his family out of the house.

The other tenant, Rosio Chevez, 57, who also escaped via the second floor,



was sent to BMC complaining of chest pains, Driscoll said.
Dhavampal Pathak is listed in stable condition, hospital officials said, while the other three fire victims were treated and released.

Local fire officials and an investigator with the state Fire Marshal’s Office spent the sifting through the charred remains and Driscoll said they determined the cause to be an electrical problem in the Pathaks’ kitchen area.

The house’s owner and brother-in-law of the Pathaks, Anup Sangar of Lee, said the building was insured, but he didn’t have a cost estimate of the damage and he was unsure if the building was beyond repair.

Sangar said the five Pathak family members will stay with him for now at his home off Tyringham Road, while he expected Chevez to stay with either friends or relatives.

Lenox and Tyringham fire departments provided mutual aid and in all 30 firefighters quickly doused the smoke and flames.

"The guys did a very good job" fighting fire, Driscoll said.

To reach Dick Lindsay:
rlindsay@berkshireeagle.com,
or (413) 496-6233.