Blaze engulfs house
BUTLER TWP — A fire that started in the garage quickly spread and destroyed a modular-style home in the township’s Highfield section early this morning.
No one was hurt in the blaze that broke out about 4:10 a.m. at 210 Shady Ave., authorities said.
Ben and David Fair, father and son, lived at the home. Both were sleeping when the fire struck.
“They smelled smoke and got out,” according to a Butler Township police report.
The cause of the blaze was not immediately known, and the state police fire marshal’s office was called to investigate.
“I heard an explosion and it woke me up,” said Stephanie Davey, who lives with her husband, William, across the street at 209 Shady Ave. “It sounded like a gunshot.”
The noise, fire officials guessed, could have been the tires blowing on a 1960s model Chevy pickup truck that was in the garage.
Davey got to a window and looked toward the Fair house, covered with white vinyl siding and blue shutters.
“The entire garage was on fire, and it was spreading fast,” she said.
Across the street in back of the house on fire, Sandy Yost’s barking dog had roused her from a peaceful sleep at her home in the 200 block of North Boundary Street.
“At first I saw flashing red lights from the window,” she said. “I looked out and saw nothing but flames everywhere, and firefighters fighting it.”
Engines and trucks from all of Butler Township’s departments rolled up, and the first crews wasted no time taking action.
An attack team made its way inside through the back door at the end of the house farthest from the garage, said Chief Toby Wehr of the Meridian Volunteer Fire Company.
“It was burning pretty good,” he said. “It was fully involved.”
Wehr took over the command duties after Chief Dexter Keibler of the Lyndora Volunteer Fire Company had to leave for work.
The fire reduced the garage to a pile of smoking rubble and took out most of an addition toward the center of the house, which had a wood burner.
A chimney was still standing after the fire was snuffed out more than an hour later.
When the billowing smoke finally ebbed, the burned remnants of the old pickup were revealed in what used to be the garage.
Yost said the father and son had not lived there long.
“They moved in over the summertime, and I didn’t get to know them real well,” she said. “It’s a shame what happened. It’s a shame it happened around the holidays.”
