NSTAR Employees Narrowly Escape Fire in Teele Square

Fire rained down from an NSTAR utility truck cherry picker Tuesday afternoon outside Teele Square, setting a car on fire, causing an NSTAR truck tire to explode, and nearly killing at least one NSTAR employee.

The employee escaped the fire when he jumped from one cherry picker into another, according to initial reports.

The fire, outside 28 Clarendon Ave., happened at approximately 1:30 p.m.

According to Somerville Fire Chief Kevin Kelleher, who was on the scene after the fire, the fire department was still investigating the cause of the fire. 

He said preliminary indications pointed to a hydraulic line failure in the cherry picker crane of the NSTAR truck. NSTAR is a large electric and gas utility company.

The NSTAR employee in the cherry picker was working on utility lines two stories in the air when the fire started. 

Another NSTAR employee, working in a truck nearby, saw the fire and rushed over, deploying his own cherry picker to rescue the endangered worker. The endangered worker jumped to safety from his fire-engulfed cherry-picker bucket into the rescuing truck's bucket, according to Kelleher.

No one was hurt in the incident or taken to the hospital. The NSTAR worker who jumped to safety was on the scene after the incident. He appeared to be okay but did not want to comment.

According to witnesses, the indecent was like watching liquid fire drip down from the utility lines.

A Volvo sedan under the NSTAR cherry picker also caught on fire.

Steve Barkin, a neighbor, rushed outside when he heard an explosion—probably the NSTAR truck tire exploding. "The cherry picker was on fire," he said. "There were several little fires everywhere."

When Barkin went inside to call the fire department, his landline telephone was dead.

Clarendon Avenue was shut down as a result of the fire.