At a fire on West Street, Worcester Deputy Fire Chief Martin Dyer remembers pulling up to a three-decker where there appeared to be a small fire.
As firefighters prepared to put it out, the blaze did what fires often do in those iconic three-story apartment buildings: it ran up through the walls to the roof and soon firefighters were scrambling to keep the building from burning to the ground.
“You’re thinking you’re dealing with the fire in front of you and it heads straight up,” he said, explaining one of the challenges of fighting a three-decker fire.
Of the more than 4,900 three-family residences in the city, many are classic three-deckers. The old buildings, which date from the mid-19th century to the 1930s, have three stories with an apartment on each floor of roughly equal space. They often have front and rear porches on each floor.
They are charming, but they also are built in ways that can make them fire hazards. Two Worcester firefighters have died in less than a decade fighting fires in three-deckers.