Jack Barry, district chief of the Lynn Fire Department, described the Dec. 4 inferno in a home on Bruce Place as one of those “terrible glass half full, half empty fires.”

“We were able to save lives that night,” Barry recalled yesterday, “but there were four people we couldn’t save.”

Barry’s boss, fire Chief James McDonald, said the blaze was “so horrific that guys try, as best they can, not to dwell on it. You just want in the worst way to move on and put what you’ve seen behind you somehow.”

Between them, Jack Barry and James McDonald have a total of 71 years on the job. Yet as seasoned as these two jakes are, they were not prepared to be embraced by the love and gratitude that students at Lynn English High School showed them on Friday.

Their friend and former classmate, Yasmin Cruz, 19, perished in the blaze along with her mother, a pregnant aunt and a cousin. Yasmin graduated from Lynn English last year and had begun studies at North Shore Community College, hoping to follow her mother, Maritza, into the home health care field.

Firefighters rescued her sister, Jeannetty Aquino Cruz, a senior at Lynn English, who has recently left the hospital to return to the Dominican Republic, where she’ll bury her family members.

The Bruce Place blaze not only haunted firefighters, it also forced a largely immigrant student body to grapple with issues of life and death.

“Our kids were devastated,” said Diane Lynch, the English language learner department head. “A few had shown up at the house that morning to go to school with Jeannetty. As heartbroken as they were, they immediately took it upon themselves to raise money to help Jeannetty as well as all the others who lost everything in the fire.”

Within a space of just four days, the students raised $4,000 by selling bracelets etched with the words “Hand in Hand” in English and Spanish.

Yesterday, Nellie Marquez, a third-floor tenant who managed to escape the blaze, was presented with a $2,000 check from the Lynn English students. All she could say through her tears was, “This is a blessing from God.”

In their concern for those who died or lost everything in the fire, students at Lynn English also wanted to include the firefighters.

On Friday, 15 Lynn firefighters who worked the fire went to Lynn English, where they were presented with bracelets by students who thanked them for saving their friend’s life, as well as risking their own lives to save everyone.

“It was a wonderful moment,” said Jack Barry, “one that put such a human face on what we all went through. Their gratitude for us and what we did that night, well, it was a wonderful gift in and of itself.”

Chief Jim McDonald said he was humbled by the students’ expression of thoughtfulness. “I was back at my alma mater, Lynn English, and it was really wonderful to be recognized like that by kids who simply wanted to let us know how thankful they were for all we did.

“I was sincerely touched, as we all were, by the gift of that bracelet,” McDonald said, “and I know it lifted all of us up.”

A Go Fund Me account has 
been established for the Lynn fire victims: gofundme.com/lehs-donate.