NASHUA – Nashua UPS driver Patrick “Pat” Lank was on his delivery route when it happened. He remembers clearing an intersection and looking left, right, left when he saw flames coming from a corner home. He ran to the front door, knocked several times, and instinctively shouted, “UPS.”

He felt the door for heat and then tried the doorknob. The door was unlocked, and he opened it to a dazed senior citizen standing in the house. He began hearing explosions coming from the garage, so he verified the gentleman was the only one in the house, and led him to a safe location outside.

The homeowner’s son, Robert, shared that Lank was the first on the scene at his dad’s home. He says, “My dad would surely have been severely injured or worse if Pat didn’t make those choices.”

The report of the fire is covered here:

Nashua Fire Rescue received a call from the Air Traffic control tower at Boire Field reporting heavy black smoke from the Chatfield Drive area on Friday.

Multiple calls began to come in for a reported explosion in a garage at 2 Chatfield Drive at about 11:25 a.m. Nashua fire, while responding to the call, reported heavy smoke showing a few miles from the scene and the call was upgraded to a working fire.

Additional apparatus were dispatched to the fire and for station coverage.

Firefighters arrived to heavy fire in the garage attached to a house and flames coming from the roofline. Crews immediately entered the house to search for occupants and learned the sole occupant had safely escaped.

Firefighters cut holes in the roof to ventilate the fire from the attic, and windows were removed throughout the house to eject smoke.

When firefighters arrived, the roof of the garage was gone, and the right side of the garage was leaning and ready to fall. A garage door that was twisted and damaged was in the driveway.

Firefighters worked to knock down the heavy fire inside the garage and to extinguish the car that was fully engulfed.

The fire was brought under control in about 45 minutes. Firefighters worked to put salvage tarps over the contents of the house,

The Nashua Fire Marshal’s Office is investigating the cause and origin of the fire. No civilians or firefighters were injured in the fire.

Jeffrey Hastings contributed to this report.