Images captured by a neighbor show an explosive burst of flame at fatal Springfield fire

The scene of an overnight fire that killed two women at 126 East St. in Springfield. (Don Treeger / The Republican)

Mariely Diaz didn't see it all — the fire that swept through a Springfield home last week, killing two women — but her surveillance system did.

From the beginning of the fire to crews completing their cleanup, her security system recorded the tragic scene.

What it captured adds new detail to what's been released about the fire. Officials have not yet pinpointed a cause.

A spokesman for the Hampden County District Attorney's office declined to identify the two women killed in the fire. Property records show the home was owned by Donna Piacentini.

Carlos Cordova, Diaz's boyfriend, said Monday he got to know both Donna Piacentini and her sister, Lynne, and confirmed their names.

Cordova said that the sisters were busy people, always coming and going from the house. He said they were always pleasant people. One of the woman carried an oxygen bottle and used a walker to get around.

In an interview, Diaz said her small dog woke her at about 2 a.m. Thursday.

"He was barking and whining like something was wrong, so I got up to check on him," she said. "I saw the house was on fire and a man was running and yelling and waving his arms in the street trying to stop cars from running over the wires."

Diaz agreed to share the video with The Republican and MassLive. She started it at a timestamp reading 2 a.m., when a definite flash could be seen, then a small orange glow in the breezeway area.

By 2:15 a.m., the glow had grown into a definite flickering light that could be seen in the breezeway windows. Then at 2:19 a.m., an explosion of flame could be seen to engulf the breezeway.

That initial explosion was followed by several more, some so violent that embers and debris were blown out from the fireball. Flames from the burning breezeway reached higher than the peak of the house.

By 2:20 a.m., wind had pushed the fire into the first floor of the home and flames could be seen in most of the downstairs windows. The east side of the house and the breezeway were fully involved in flames by that time. The explosions on the breezeway continued.

At 2:25 a.m., power lines that ran across the street began to arc on the pavement, and passersby began trying to stop traffic. Police arrived on the scene about that time. The Fire Department arrived a minute or two later.

The Springfield Fire Department spokesperson, Capt. Drew Piemonte, said that when the first fire units arrived at the fire scene, the entire first floor of the house was engulfed in flames. Flames were blasting out from exterior windows, preventing firefighters from entering the structure to search for occupants. That likely sealed the fate of the women who were later found dead in a second-floor bedroom.

"The conditions didn't really allow for an aggressive interior attack," Piemonte said.

Fire crews were unable to reach two women trapped in this home at 126 East St., which became engulfed with fire early Thursday. (Photo courtesy of Springfield Fire Department)

In the eight years she lived in the East Street and Bowles Park neighborhood, Diaz said she never got to know her neighbors and had little contact with the two women who lived at 126 East St.

"I would see them occasionally as they went to their car. We would wave ‘hello’ across the street," she said.

Other neighbors agreed. The women, in their 60s and 70s, kept to themselves.

Diaz said her video surveillance system recorded the doomed house be consumed by fire. That night, the early images of the house showed a dwelling that looked the same for years. Until 2 a.m.

"You could see they had a night light or something on the breezeway between the garage and the house," she said. "I was watching and it went out, just blinked out."

Subsequent images showed a glow in the breezeway windows.

"I could see the orange light inside, then there was like an explosion," she said.

The burst of flames in the images may have been growing in the time that lapsed between photographs, meaning it was not so much an explosion but a rapid acceleration.

Nevertheless, fire swept into the first-floor area quickly. Exterior windows on the first floor of the home showed charring and scorching. However, Piemonte said the bedroom in which the women were found did not show any fire damage.

"I feel so badly," Diaz said. "I didn't know them. But what happened is terrible."

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