Fire Closes Off Mass. Ave.

Cambridge Fire Department (CFD) officials said an errant cigarette butt may have caused the small fire that shut down Mass. Ave. for nearly an hour yesterday afternoon.

Serendipity, a clothing and shoe store on Mass. Ave., was the only store struck by the fire—although their external sign was the only thing consumed in flames.

According to Thomas Batchelder, a bystander who saw the blaze, two-inch flames burned the wooden backing of Serendipity’s sign.

A CFD spokesperson said it took firefighters about 10 minutes to extinguish the fire, which started at 2:03 p.m.

CFD Deputy Fire Chief Francis E. Murphy III said the cause of the fire was likely a cigarette butt flicked from one of the building’s windows.

Jonathan W. Coffin, an employee at Serendipity’s next-door neighbor Levitt & Pierce, said his and other Mass. Ave. stores closed immediately after they heard fire alarms.

But employees at Serendipity said they didn’t hear the alarms.

“The only store open was Serendipity,” Coffin said.

Serendipity employee Whazat P. Kidane said she and other store employees did not notice a fire had started until a woman on the street told them about it.

Serendipity employees said they shut down the store at 2:20 p.m. and reopened it at 4 p.m.

Firefighters hosed and pulled the sign down from the building.

Kidane said the store’s owner would purchase a new sign.

“I don’t know when they’re going to fix it,” she said. “It looks ugly from the outside.”

—Staff writer Claire A. Pasternack can be reached at cpastern@fas.harvard.edu.