9 Escape Carriage House Fire That Hit 2 Dorchester Homes

DORCHESTER (CBS) - Nine people escaped a huge fire early Friday morning in Dorchester.

Flames broke out in a empty carriage house on Robinson Street around 5 a.m. When firefighters arrived they found the fire had spread to the two triple-decker homes in front of it. All three porches on one of those homes went up in flames.

Everyone inside got out safely of the badly burned home. Firefighters also saved three cats from that house.

"I think everything went very smoothly this morning fortunately," Boston Fire Commissioner Jack Dempsey told reporters. "The carriage house was unoccupied, so we focused our attention on the exposure buildings, make sure the people were out and then knocked down the fire in the carriage house."

There's no word yet on how or where the fire started.

Damage is estimated at $1 million.