Last night Jen and I did something that we occasionally do. We wanted to go out to eat, but couldn’t decide where. When that happens we will sometimes just get in the car, pick a direction, start driving, and see what we find.

In yesterday’s case we didn’t find anything that seemed right. We went as far south as Woburn before turning around. When we crossed back into Methuen on route 110 we decided to see if there was anything appealing on Riverside Drive. Not long after crossing into Lawrence, we came upon a scary scene.

Hancock Street was one block to the North and a big chunk of it was on fire. We saw crowds of people on Riverside, about a dozen firemen, and all,sorts of fire fighting equipment. There was a lot of smoke in the air, and in a couple of spots we could look to our left and see massive, thick smoke on the next street over.

Jen did a little Internet news searching and we found that as of 7:00pm or so, two houses had collapsed and a third was destroyed. My heart goes out to the people who lost their homes. May they get back on their feet quickly.

Whenever you hear about emergency situations in Lawrence these days, the first thought is always to their much publicized budget problems and their insanely huge cuts in police and fire staff. By the time we saw things, there were fire companies from all of the nearby towns assisting, but there must have been some stressful moments for the Lawrence Fire Department when they arrived on the scene and saw how bad it was.

The other thought you have when you hear about a fire in Lawrence is the arson spree that happened there back in the 90’s. it was in the 90’s, wasn’t it? Whenever it was, you do not want to see that insanity start happening again.

Fortunately, Jen’s Internet news searching yesterday told us that no one was hurt during the fire. That is good news, and I hope it’s still the case today.