PITTSFIELD, Mass. — A city man is in critical condition after being rescued by firefighters from a burning second-floor apartment on Friday.
The victim was found suffering from severe burns in a room next to the kitchen where the fire started in Apartment 4 at 483 Peck's Road. He was taken to Berkshire Medical Center by Action Ambulance and later flown to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
The blaze in the six-unit structure was reported at about noontime. Brown smoke was reported coming from the eaves of the building and a hose was stretched to the second floor apartment to extinguish the kitchen fire. Crews from Engines 3 and 5 entered the building and found the victim. Personnel from Engine 1 did a primary search of the structure for any other individuals and to determine the extent of the fire.
The fire damage was largely confined to single apartment but the occupant of the unit underneath on the first floor was displaced. Red Cross was contacted to assist the person. The rest of the building suffered degrees of smoke damage.
Deputy Chief Ron Clement was on-scene incident commander. The cause of the fire is not known at this time and the state fire marshal's office is assisting in the investigation.
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Pittsfield's This and That Sports Celebrating Six Years
By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — This and That Sports is celebrating its sixth birthday with a party.
Owner Reggie Davis opened the collectables and card store at 128 Fenn St., pursuing a hobby he has had since he was a teenager.
He started with small card shows and later collected a broad range of items, including sports memorabilia, autographs, Beanie Babies, and Matchbox cars.
"It's been a long time, and it's not just cards. I mean, I collect everything. I love sports memorabilia, autographs," he said.
Originally from Great Barrington, he moved to Connecticut and operated a collectibles store there from 2004 to 2014 before moving back to Berkshire County. He worked for FedEx before opening the new store in 2020.
For the first six months, he balanced the store with his career with FedEx, with help from his wife, Crystal, who worked around her own overnight hospital shifts. He left FedEx to focus on the store full time and works with his son, Bret.
He said it is more than a job and he is happy to open his doors to the collecting community.
"It's like something that I looked at as a pleasure business. It wasn't about the money. It was more like bringing the collecting part of the hobby to Berkshire County," he said.
Davis said he misses live baseball in Pittsfield, recalling Pittsfield Mets games. He said collecting brings him closer to that feeling of watching a local team when he was younger.
"I've always remembered growing up as a kid of the Pittsfield Mets and then the Pittsfield Suns and baseball being here and I was a big sports person, I played a lot of sports, and it's kind of sad and I think I want to continue the sports collecting part, the hobby. You can't go to a baseball game here unless it's like a high school game. So it's kind of continuing the collecting part of the hobby without the actual sports being here," he said.
Davis said the store's customers have become friends. He added that he likes to see the younger generation open packs of cards.
"The amazing part about it is not just the kids, but the customers. Like, I have customers that've been coming in for four, five, six [years] even new ones that just started coming in like a month ago," he said. "We've been out to dinner with these people. We travel. Customers have become friends, even close friends, which is nice."
He said one of the most challenging parts of the business has been to keep everything in stock especially with the surge in popularity of Pokemon cards.
"We have people that stop in all the time, and they're like wow you got a great selection of Pokemon, you have a big selection, and I think that's you know we have distribution for sports and Pokemon, but it sells so quick," he said. "I think the hardest thing is to be able to keep product on the shelf."
Not only does he sell collectibles, but he also purchased a card grading company called Revolutionary Card Grading that he opened next door. The company, based in Georgia, produces specialized color-matched designs but card grading and customer submissions are now handled locally since taking full ownership of the company last year.
A special town meeting on Monday night authorized 11 of 12 warrant articles, only nixing a contentious proposal to buy land for a police station. click for more
