Fire decimates building
HARRISVILLE — Racing on Route 8 in his truck Eric Snyder could see the thick, black smoke rising high in the sky.
Soon, he saw the orange and red fireballs that would seemingly in a flash reduce his apartment building on East Mercer Street to a heap of smoldering ruins.
The spectacular fire Thursday morning brought a painful sense of déjà vu to Snyder.
“Not again,” he muttered aloud.
Just 10 months ago, an accidental fire laid waste to his previous apartment building that stood at the same site.
The Harrisville man's born again building only days earlier had passed its electrical inspection. The gas also had been connected.
The kitchen cabinets had just been delivered and were ready to be installed.
“We were going to lay the insulation and start drywalling next week,” Snyder said. “I was hoping it would be done in May.”
He already had tenants for three of the four units at the story-and-a-half building.
That's all changed. For now, he's left to wonder about curses and jinxes.
“It makes you wonder why,” Snyder said. “How could this happen?”
The state police fire marshal's office is investigating the cause of Thursday's blaze but fire officials said they have seen no evidence it was suspicious.
Ten departments from three counties answered the fire call shortly after 10 a.m., but it was too late to save anything.
“The fire was fully involved and through the roof and coming out all the windows,” said Chief Steve Bickel of the Harrisville Volunteer Fire Department. “There wasn't a lot we could do.”
The dozens of firefighters, assisted by the Grove City Volunteer Department's ladder truck, went into defensive mode from the start, pouring water from every direction on the doomed structure.
The fire was so hot that it melted the vinyl siding on two homes on either side of the building.
For the 53-year-old Snyder, a painting contractor, the day began like so many others. Only a mile or two away, he was on the job.
But an unexpected cell phone call upended his daily routine. On the other line was a friend, Darlene Knight of Slippery Rock, who had just gotten a call from her son.
Knight's son, who lives maybe a half-mile down the road, noticed the fire. He suggested his mother call Snyder.
“Darlene told me, 'Eric, your apartments are on fire.' I thought she was joking,” he said. “She told me she wasn't.”His heart sank. His head spun.“I jumped in my truck and flew (there),” he said. “I saw it and thought, 'You've got to be kidding.' It was bad.”Coincidentally, Knight was one of Snyder's former tenants at the apartment building that burned to the ground May 14.Across the street Thursday morning, Cassie Blom had been sleeping at her grandfather's house.“I heard a loud sound,” she said. “It was like a big explosion.”The explosion would be followed by two more.“The explosions felt like a concussion,” said Blom's boyfriend, Lance Kope, who was with her. “It shook the house.”Blom went outside to look.“The whole (building) was in flames,” she said. “It was gone in less than 10 minutes. It was real quick.”The blaze Thursday was worse than the 2015 fire, according to Snyder's first impression.Last year's fire left five adults and two children homeless but no one was injured. Two cats perished.Bickel said that blaze was determined to be electrical in nature.The building, which was valued at $275,000, was insured.The new building still under construction was also insured, Snyder said. He estimated his loss at $400,000 to $500,000.The estimate included a makeshift workshop full of new tools that were being stored in one of the apartments.Snyder wasn't sure if he would rebuild one more time.“It's too early to say — way too early,” he said. “But I'm hopeful.”
