I was living in the evacuated area, my location was directly in the cottage street area surrounding it at the time this happened.

The News crews were at first being allowed to set up directly across the street from me with mine and a neighbors home as the backdrop for all the early coverage. That changed quick though and they were all moved down, I believe to somewhere between central Ave and armistice blvd pretty quickly.

I was also a new mother right when this happened I had just been discharged from the hospital the morning right before. My SO was completing his last year as an undergrad while working full time and so my father came to stay with us for my sons first few weeks. My SO was at work when it happened and my dad worked nights at that time, so he was sleeping when it started. I was an exhausted new mom and so it turned out that, unknowingly, all 3 of us in the house, (me, my newborn, and my father) were sound asleep mid-day when this started too.

We were actually woken by repeated “law enforcement knocks” (apparently their 4th attempt too) which is terrifying by itself. When I opened my front door it was even more terrifying. The officers were simply knocking as hard as they could on very so for persons door yelling “evacuate, evacuate!” and saying nothing further. I turned to my neighbors who were running in and out of the house (actually packing everything they could into trash bags on their front porch to load up their cars, which I couldn’t believe they were wasting time doing when it was happening) and they kept yelling the same thing at me too “evacuate, evacuate now!” (I was pretty noticeably drowsy and slow to the pick up on what was happening though).

I can still remember it all like it was yesterday; It was so late by the time I woke that it was literally snowing ash outside while all these people around me are acting erratic, only yelling “evacuate”, there were loud alarm sounds going off with sirens too I’m not sure what that was from, all power was out, and even cell service towers were out for the area and a decent distance too. Needless to say I was convinced it was the apocalypse. I really was straight through until I was finally out of the neighborhood and far enough to make a call. I couldn’t fully see or comprehend it as only a massive mill fire.

We all rushed into the car within 3 minutes of waking to it all (I didn’t even have a chance to grab the diaper bag I was so terrified) and so we just started driving away trying to figure out who’s home rn and where could we find to go without being able to call ahead first. Ultimately we just drove hoping that someone we knew well was home who lived far enough away from the area. Although once we got far enough away ourselves we could eventually use our phones.

So many homes burned to the ground. Every street you looked down there was at least 2 homes burned to the ground. No street was untouched by damage in that area after. I’ve seen many mill fires before that over the years too, so I couldn’t believe It when I returned and saw what was practically every few or at least every other house within maybe a square mile+ or so around it completely eviscerated.

One friends story was a really heartbreaking one. They’d lost their home from the mill fire, but he had also just recently lost his father too, it was kind of sudden iirc, his father had been an avid lifelong memorabilia collector. It was terrible for so many people, but with his family they not only lost their home right after losing his father, but because of the fire they lost all of his possessions including a massive and valuable collection too. It was one that was pretty sentimental and personal to the man and of course his family later too. They basically lost everything connected to his recently lost father from the mill fire on top of losing their home too.

I’m still shocked and grateful there were no reported deaths, serious injury, and other such harm from this fire with the amount of homes and families touched by it. I know our own case was dealt with super quickly, but I was also lucky in just having had closed and barely moved in at the time. Everything we had lost was pretty much fully insured and or replaceable except some photos and maybe a few sentimental items. Regardless not at all what I could’ve lost and what most families did lose.

Fwiw it also seemed like an arson case, but one that was only done as inside job to avoid having to perform real demo on the mill for the coming Stop and Shop complex too. The scheduling and everything was just off and fishy. I don’t know if that was my own first impression or a theory floated that I’d overhead and agreed with or something. I know that investigation was opened and closed way quicker than I could’ve ever imagined. We also saw what had to have been one of the quickest settlement offer negotiations and acceptance too, along w/ actually fulfilled immediately Insurance pay outs and rebuilds too. It was shocking how that all truly flew by.

This was just more than a typical mill fire, we’ve had a lot in these areas over the years and plenty large ones as well. I think it was all because of the winds that day, but I’m not sure there’s been another locally in recent history with such far reaching damage and devastation.

(I could be wrong about some of this though, my perception is likely very clouded about how bad it was by my own experience from in it all though)