By Garrick Hoffman

“It’s this six degrees of separation thing,” said an SMCC student who knew one of the Noyes Street victims. “Everyone unconsciously really knows each other through other people. And it seems like, because of that slim separation, because of that unconscious unity, there’s this sort of energy that has affected everyone in the area. People’s facial expressions are grim. They seem despondent, and it’s as if that somber energy has permeated throughout the city in wake of the tragedy.”
On November 1, residents and guests at 20 Noyes St., Portland, were befallen by a fierce and rapidly accelerating blaze. The fire was reported slightly after 7am but despite the prompt arrival of the Portland Fire Department, the fire went on to claim the lives of six people, all aged in their mid- to late-20s. One of the victims had managed to escape the house but had sustained severe burns and, days later, succumbed to his injuries in a Boston hospital. Two of the tenants escaped largely unscathed.
The fire has been declared the worst fire in Maine in 40 years. A great deal of speculation as to how the fire began has emerged, with little if any conclusions being drawn. Investigations by local, state, and federal authorities have been underway, employing the use of fire modeling and reverse engineering.
One of the survivors noted the porch as a potential origin of the fire due to the tenants’ regular smoking habits, although he said he didn’t see anyone smoking when he arrived home at 3am.
The house has been subject to a slew of complaints – 16 have been filed in the last decade – regarding the conditions of the property. Complaints range from “a possibly illegal unit built on the third floor, to combustible materials on the porch and excessive trash,” according to the Portland Press Herald.
According to National Fire Protection Association, as reported in the Press Herald, careless smoking is the leading cause of residential fire deaths in the United States. In addition, three in five deaths occur in homes with no working smoke detectors.
Indeed, in a small city like Portland, where virtually everyone treats each other like a neighbor, the effects of a tragedy aren’t curtailed at the people immediately impacted. It blankets the community, and this month’s devastating episode is a telling example of this. The Noyes Street fire has truly gripped and rattled Portland, and surely beyond.
These individuals were in the vicinity of age of many SMCC students. They had family and friends, co-workers and employers, peers and maybe even professors. The man who died in the Boston hospital was married and had two children.
We don’t all know their stories, but seeing how jovial they all appeared in their pictures provides a description of their personalities. They looked animated, happy, wild with youthful spirit.
Ultimately they were human beings who lost their lives in a way that’s inexplicable. Their futures were unfairly robbed from them while the rest of us carry on. We, the observers from the distance, can only attempt to conceive the gravity, magnitude and length of the tragedy’s rippling impact. It is times like these that prove just how unkind, unfair, and unforgiving fate is.
Too often the illusion of our false immortality prevents us from taking prudent measures that could otherwise ensure the safety of others and ourselves. No one is exempt from the possibility of tragedy or harm; no one is invincible. But many of us seem to walk through life as if we are exempt and invincible. We can’t guarantee our safety, but we can do our best to take these measures of prudence to at least secure a greater degree of safety than if we hadn’t. We can keep harm at bay, but action is required from us to accomplish this. Unfortunately for many of us, safety examination and action are only awakened in the advent of a calamity.
But we don’t know how the fire started, or if the landlord, Greg Nisbet, had indeed tried his best to take preventative measures.
In a written statement published in the Press Herald on November 7, Portland Mayor Michael Brennan said, “This is a very emotional and raw time for everyone in Portland, and it’s important to note that no one should be placing blame. When something like this happens, everyone – including landlords, tenants and the City – should use this incident to educate themselves about best practices and learn from it as we move forward.”
Our thoughts and condolences go out to the families of the victims and everyone affected by this tragedy.