Blaze damages home in city
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Fire severely damaged a city house Tuesday evening on the 200 block of Beech Avenue, across from Orchard Park.
No one was in the house at the time of the fire, according to city Fire Chief Adam Free.
Half the house was fire damaged, mainly toward the front, while the remainder was heavily damaged with smoke and water, Free said.
It depends on insurance whether the house will be saved – “if there’s insurance,” Free said, standing on the avenue out front, as firefighters put out hot spots in the house.
The call came in at 7:39 p.m., and Altoona firefighters were on scene within two minutes, Free said.
“The whole front of the house was on fire when they got here,” Free said.
They had it under control within 15 minutes with an “offensive attack” – firefighters entering the building, pulling hoses and suppressing the flames, he said.
Fire inspector Justin Smithmyer was expected to begin an investigation of the cause soon, Free said.
Neighbor Melissa Wertz, who lives across the avenue, was on her back deck when she saw smoke, she said.
When she came around front, flames were coming out of the front windows of a pair of bedrooms on the first floor of the one-story house with crawl-space attic, she said.
She had seen the owner shortly before outside walking his dog and knew the two boys who lived there off and on with the owner were away, so she was confident no one was inside, which was a relief “for their lives,” she said.
In “no time at all,” however, “the front porch was engulfed,” she said.
Another neighbor soon came outside, and Wertz asked him to call 911, while she moved her family’s cars from in front of her house because they were being threatened by the flames, she said.
There are houses on each side of the house that burned, but they are far enough away to have escaped apparent damage.
All 11 firefighters on duty at the time came to the scene, as did three called in to man a spare engine that remained on standby in case of another call in the city, Free said.
Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.