Wayne Township home destroyed by fire Tuesday
Katie Anderson/Observer-Reporter
A firefighter works at the scene of a house fire Tuesday in Wayne Township.
Katie Anderson/Observer-Reporter
Firefighters work at the scene of a house fire Tuesday in Wayne Township.
Katie Anderson/Observer-Reporter
A Wayne Township home was destroyed Tuesday afternoon by fire.
Firefighters work to put out a fire that destroyed a Wayne Township home Tuesday afternoon.
Firefighters work at the scene of a house fire Tuesday in Wayne Township.
Fire destroyed a Wayne Township home Tuesday afternoon.
The log cabin on a stone foundation sat on a ridge at 153 Rush Run Road, near Spraggs. It had been in Ralph Adamson’s family for over 100 years, he said, as he watched it turn to ash.
“It’s devastating,” he said at the scene. “When I was just a little kid, I used to stay with my grandparents in this house.”
The building burned to the ground with a few walls still standing, after a fire was reported about 2:15 p.m. Adamson, who was on his way back from Morgantown when the fire started, said a neighbor saw smoke and called 911.
Ralph and Carol Adamson rented out the residence to a woman who wasn’t home Tuesday afternoon. Luckily, Adamson said, her pets were not there either.
Firefighters from Wayne Township, Center Township, Mt. Morris and Waynesburg responded to the scene. Waynesburg Fire Chief Jeff Marshall said the closest hydrant was nearly two miles away on Route 218. He said the house was insured.
Adamson said a small “wash room” structure that used to sit next to the log cabin burned down about three years ago. He said there were no utilities connected to the small building, so a cause was never determined.
“We said back then how lucky we were that it didn’t spread to the house,” Adamson said.
A cause of the house fire has not yet been determined, but the state fire marshal was called to investigate.