BUFFALO TWP — It was the house he grew up in. It was in flames.

“It was tough to watch,” Gary Risch Jr. admitted, “especially for my mother and sister.”

The entire Risch family showed up after they got word that their old homestead — a farmhouse on Route 356 near Sarver Road in Buffalo Township — was on fire.

Fire officials believe the blaze started about 11:30 p.m. Thursday in an attached two-stall garage in back of the house. No one was injured.

The two-story house with an attic, owned by Gary Risch Sr., a township supervisor, had been unoccupied for about six months. He and his wife had recently moved into a smaller house in the township.

Eight fire departments were called out but flames, fanned by strong winds, soon had taken over the house.

“The back half of the structure was fully involved,” said Matt Cypher of the Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Company. “The fire moved very, very rapidly into the house. It was extremely wind driven.”

So windy, he said, that “the flames were blowing sideways.”

To learn more about this fire, read Sunday’s Butler Eagle.