Somerville Fire Department A Somerville firefighter enters 268 Powderhouse Blvd. on Sunday.

Somerville and its Homeless Coalition are asking the community for financial donations to help 18 residents and their pets displaced by a dramatic fire Sunday.

Flames engulfed a second-floor apartment at a city housing authority building at 268 Powderhouse Blvd. , West Somerville, late in the evening, and though firefighters rescued at least six people, many belongings were lost to smoke, fire and water.

“Now the work of recovery begins,” mayor Katjana Ballantyne said Tuesday, urging the community to become “part of the caring response” by supporting the Somerville Homeless Coalition Emergency Fund.

The fund can “quickly provide the kind of direct help to individuals that makes all the dif

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