LOWELL — Dayanire Méndez’s home day-care center on Wachusett Street was bustling with toddlers last Tuesday when, around 3:30 p.m., she felt an intense heat start to spread. She turned to her kitchen window and saw “too much fire.” Her backyard shed was burning down as neighboring properties were engulfed by flames.
“The only thing [on my mind], the children,” Méndez said. “Take care of the children, and go outside.”
She and her older daughter, Sarah, scooped up the five children in her care — including Sarah’s younger sister, Deborah — and rushed out the front of the house, where police were calling on residents to evacuate. They took refuge in a neighboring home where “in 30 minutes, every father picked up their baby,” Méndez said.
It’s been more than a week since high winds and dry conditions carried a fire across four blocks and burned six homes on May 5 in the Centralville neighborhood, permanently displacing 44 residents and disrupting the lives of their neighbors and the city as a whole.
Méndez reopened her day-care business on the following Monday, a relative return to normalcy.
Local nonprofits are helping families with clothing, food, and other essentials, and had raised nearly $18,000 as of Wednesday. Overall, 10 families — 30 adults, 14 children — were uprooted.
“A number of them have come through with their children [and] their chins are up,” said David Aldrich, cofounder of Project Kompass, a nonprofit that has provided donations for the families.
None of the families will be able to return to their homes, according to Community Teamwork Inc., a local nonprofit providing families with housing assistance. Others in Lowell, like Méndez, are recovering amid the debris after the catastrophic fire.
Three days after the fire, one street over from Méndez’s home, on Bridge Street, the occasional car slowed to gawk at the four-family home where the fire was first reported shortly before 3 p.m. The front edifice was completely black, a stark sight atop a hill. A persistent breeze blew, sending hanging pieces of siding clattering against the charred house and a smoky smell wafting down.
The community stared in awe at the home the night of the fire, witnesses said, as firefighters hacked through the door and walls, and water flowed down the blackened front steps.
The Red Cross of Massachusetts set up a relief center at the Lowell Senior Center. The Salvation Army and Project Kompass community centers also provided people with food and hygiene products.
As of Wednesday, five of the 10 families are staying in hotels, and three are staying with relatives or friends, said Kathleen Plath, spokesperson for Community Teamwork Inc., the organization that’s helping families find new homes. The organization has not contacted the other two families.
Twelve of the residents are Lowell Public Schools students, and Community Teamwork coordinated transportation to take them to school from their temporary housing, Plath said.
The night of the fire, flames and embers swiftly flew from Bridge Street up to Wachusett and May streets, where Brenda Turcotte, 75, has lived for 30 years.
“I can still smell the smoke,” Turcotte, who lives across the street from the final house to catch fire, said last Friday. Her four dogs started barking after 3 p.m. the day of the fire.
“I thought it was a mailman,” Turcotte said. “When I got to the door, it was all this black smoke.”
Turcotte met a neighbor and they sped down the block for safety. Turcotte’s son later arrived and took care of the dogs.
After the fire, the multifamily home at 34 May St. almost appeared intact from straight on, save for a blackened window on the second floor. But the roof was nearly gone, and debris was scattered across the lawn.
Turcotte was relieved no residents were injured.
“God was with us,” she said.
Project Kompass launched a website to collect donations for families that lost their homes and has raised over $17,600. Last week, the center was open to hand out supplies, take donations, and refer people to the other organizations offering help.
“We don’t want to duplicate efforts. We want to enhance what other people are doing,” Ronnie Hoey, executive director of Project Kompass, said of the coordination with other organizations.
Priscila Keliher, executive director of the Wish Project, a state nonprofit that assists families after crises, said it’s helping families with baby strollers and high chairs, as well as silverware sets and coffee makers.
When families visited Project Kompass, Aldrich said, they were given access to a Wish Project form where they could list what they needed. Aldrich said that seeing the coordination between the groups has been extraordinary, though unsurprising.
“Lowell is a city that pulls together on a lot of issues, and they’re certainly pulling together on this one,” Aldrich said.
For many, it’s been hard to move on from the fire.
After Méndez returned home that hellish evening, she saw firefighters battling flames again outside her home. Her porch caught fire around 9 p.m., and her family had to evacuate for another two hours.
The interior of her home was unscathed. Days after the fire, two high chairs were set up on a play mat beside a tiny, Disney princess-themed couch and a toy kitchen. Educational posters lined the walls, which teach the children about shapes and telling time. Baby dolls and stuffed animals were perched on a shelf. She wanted the daycare to be all set for the kids’ return.
But “the outside is dead,” Méndez sighed. Melted siding ribboned off the house, and her backyard shed had been burned to the ground.
“I couldn’t sleep because I was scared the fire would come back,” she said. Days later, she still fears it will return, “only in my mind.”
Lauren Albano can be reached at lauren.albano@globe.com. Follow her on X @LaurenAlbano_.