Fire guts city house
Gideon Bradshaw/Observer-Reporter
Firefighters direct water onto a house on North Franklin Street in Washington that was gutted by a fire Friday morning.
Gideon Bradshaw/Observer-Reporter
Little remained of a house on North Franklin Street in Washington after a fire Friday morning.
Courtesy of Dorthy Curry/Green Beetle Creative
Flames engulf a house on North Franklin Street in Washington Friday morning.
Taneisha Thomas was at home Friday morning when she smelled burning wood and heard a popping sound.
So she went outside, where she saw the front of her next-door neighbors’ house was aflame on the side closest to the one she lives in. She tried calling 911.
“After they didn’t answer for a minute, I just grabbed my kids and ran,” said Thomas.
Multiple callers to 911 reported the fire that destroyed a two-story house at 271 N. Franklin St., after the blaze engulfed it shortly after 8 a.m.
“Everybody was out,” said city fire Chief Gerry Coleman. “They’re with the Red Cross right now, getting them warm.”
Coleman said it took at least an hour and a half to get the fire under control. The state police fire marshal is investigating the cause of the blaze, he said.
Fire Capt. Nick Blumer said the couple who lived there with their 18-year-old granddaughter had a rent-to-own agreement to acquire the two-story house. He said there were dogs inside – two free and a third in a crate.
“To our knowledge, the dogs are still in the house,” Blumer said. “We haven’t been able to locate them.”
The couple didn’t want to speak about the fire.
“Not right now,” one of them said when approached by a reporter.
Firefighters said utilities have been shut off to the house, which will have to be demolished.
“We haven’t been able to get inside the structure yet,” Blumer said. “It’s really compromised.”
Thomas said in the time it took her to get her children out of her house, the flames had spread across the front of the ground floor of her neighbors’ home.
“It literally took that long, like, a couple minutes,” she said.
Coleman said the house occupied by Thomas’ family – which is separated from the one that burned into a shell of itself only by a narrow alley – sustained some smoke damage.
Firefighters were taking steps to minimize water and smoke damage to the adjacent residence, including placing a fan in the front doorway to blow air in and help prevent more smoke from getting inside.
“We had crews in that house checking for fire extensions,” Coleman said.
Firefighters from North Strabane, Peters and South Strabane townships were at the scene to help Coleman’s department, as were members of the city police department and Washington County Ambulance and Chair.
Coleman said fire crews from Canton and North Franklin were on standby.
Councilwoman Monda Williams, the city director of public safety, lives less than a block up the street. She didn’t know the displaced family, but still offered drinks and other assistance to the displaced pair. Williams said she smelled smoke around 7:45 a.m.
“The police were here right away,” Williams said. “It was fully engulfed by the time I saw a fire truck.”
The block was closed to traffic for hours. People gathered outside to watch firefighters hosing down the building.
“I just know that they’re good people,” one person who identified herself as a former neighbor said of the couple.