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DANVERS - Like many rescue workers who rushed to the site of the explosion early yesterday morning in Danvers, Beverly fire Chief Richard Pierce didn't need a phone call.

Pierce and his wife were at home in bed when they were jolted awake by the blast.

"I immediately knew this was not good," he said. "If it woke her up, I knew it was not good."

Pierce got dressed, jumped in his car and raced to the scene of the fire. It was on Elliott Street at the Beverly-Danvers line that he first spotted the fireball.

"I was just thinking I have to get there," he said.

Pierce would soon be joined by a hundred firefighters drawn from 30 cities and towns across the North Shore in what Danvers Fire Chief James Tutko would later describe as "the equivalent of a 10-alarm response."

Police from Beverly, Peabody, Salem, Wenham, Middleton and North Shore Community College also arrived to help Danvers police block off the area and evacuate homes.

"I have to praise the mutual aid system for being as efficient as it is in response to that type of emergency," Pierce said. "Everything came together really well."

Volunteers with the Beverly-based FEMA team were also on hand to provide organizational and technical expertise. Among them was Lee Prentiss, an Ipswich firefighter and trained dog handler, who immediately set to work searching the destroyed upper floor of the Danversport Pizza Factory with help from his Labrador retriever, Cooper.

"When you look at the size of the explosion and the amount of damage, I'm very shocked that people walked away," he said.

While the worst damage was concentrated in Danversport, the after-effects of yesterday's explosion kept police and firefighters busy well into yesterday afternoon. Salem police received hundreds of 911 calls following the blast and responded to eight reports of shattered windows along Essex and Washington streets.

"That's a lot considering how far away we are," Salem police Sgt. Kathleen Makros said.

Lt. Bob Caruso of the Peabody Fire Department spent yesterday making house calls on concerned homeowners along Margin Street, North Shore and South Shore avenues. Among their concerns, he said, were possible damage to gas lines going into their houses as well as cracks in the foundation.

"They wanted more or less comforting news knowing that they were safe in their home," he said. "People think of us as guardian angels. They like asking questions (and) knowing we're here 24 hours a day."

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