Joanne Lumpkins was trimming the roses in front of her house on Fuller Street when the fire broke out on the roof of the Treadmark, the soon-to-open condo and apartment building that used to be the old Ashmont Tire.

You can hit a sand wedge from Lumpkins’s front yard and hit the Treadmark on the corner of Fuller and Dorchester Avenue.

While tens of thousands watched the conflagration via helicopter video shots, Lumpkins retired to the comfort of her front porch and watched the whole thing from a chair.

“What surprised me most,’’ she said, “is that the whole damn thing is made of wood.’’

Well, at least the top four floors are.

Lumpkins was shaking her head.

“I grew up in the Lenox Street projects,’’ she said, “and the way they built them, if a fire broke out it was contained to a single apartment. If they could do it back then, why can’t they do it now?’’

The Treadmark cost about $45 million, but it would have cost a lot more if it were built like one of those ubiquitous steel and concrete million-dollar condos in the Seaport. But the wood makes the condos and the apartments in Dorchester more affordable, and the bottom line is the bottom line: Boston needs more affordable condos and apartments.

Lumpkins is 73 years old. She and her husband have lived on Fuller Street for 36 years. They have watched their neighborhood rise and rise and become desirable to people who wouldn’t have considered moving there just a few years ago.

The Treadmark, and before that the Carruth building just across Dot Ave, are monuments to the ongoing gentrification of Ashmont. The six-alarm blaze that left the Treadmark’s roof collapsed showed that fire can do nothing to gentrification except slow it down.

And that’s fine with Lumpkins and Selena Penix, 55, who has lived on Fuller Street with her husband for 25 years. They appreciate the new stores and amenities. While some bemoan the rising property values, they’ve turned away speculators who’ve shown up at their doors, offering cash to buy their houses. They’re not going anywhere.

“When the Carruth opened, I thought, ‘Should we sell our house and move in there?’ But we decided against it,’’ Penix said.

Penix was putting groceries away when she noticed the TV station had broken away from scheduled programming to show a big building on fire.

“I said, ‘That’s my street.’ So I went down Fuller and looked up and I could see the fire on the roof,’’ she said. “I kept going back home, but I kept coming back because the fire wouldn’t go out.’’

It was one of those fires they call stubborn. Deputy Fire Chief Mike Doherty and District Chief Jim Greene had to prioritize the safety of their firefighters, and when the roof, loaded with heavy ventilation and air conditioning units, began to sag, they got those firefighters off the roof. They contained the fire by throwing water, then foam, on it.

Fire Commissioner Joe Finn, who struck a sixth alarm not long after arriving at the scene, said the Treadmark’s sprinkler system was inoperable. It’s not yet known whether the system malfunctioned or simply wasn’t turned on. He said the construction adhered to state and federal regulations.

“These [types of] buildings are safe as long as the sprinkler system is functional,’’ Finn said.

The building burned less than 24 hours before it was due for its fire safety inspection. Residents were expected to move in July 15.

One of those residents, a Boston firefighter, was supposed to sign papers on his place Thursday.

Trinity Financial, the developer behind the Treadmark, vowed to rebuild. People from Trinity, including cofounder Jim Keefe, live in the neighborhood.

Fire happens, wood or no wood. The fire that ruined the Treadmark could have been worse.

“I’m just glad no one was living there yet,’’ Selena Penix said. “You can replace anything but a life.’’

Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at cullen@globe.com.