Mobile home lost to Wednesday morning fire in West Liberty
A fire chief reported no injuries when a mobile home was lost to a fire Wednesday morning, Jan. 21, in West Liberty.
The homeowner was awoken by his dog jumping on him in bed before he smelled the smoke and the two evacuated, according to Ryan Hanchosky, chief of the Slippery Rock Volunteer Fire Company and Rescue Team.
The homeowner sat in his vehicle to get warm after evacuating. Firefighters battled the flames and slippery, cold conditions, but Hanchosky said the conditions weren’t anything out of the ordinary for winter.
“No one fell, (and) everyone used caution,” Hanchosky said.
Crews were dispatched at 5:39 a.m. for the mobile home fire in the 100 block of Smith Road. Crews were still on scene around 7:15 a.m. when temperatures were 10 degrees Fahrenheit.
Hanchosky said the homeowner told him the furnace had been having a problem for the last two to three weeks, which could have been the cause of the fire.
The two-alarm response was to bring many tanker trucks to the scene since there was not a water source nearby. Hanchosky said if the structure were larger, crews may have had to go back and forth from Moraine State Park or the hydrants in Slippery Rock to the scene.
Prospect Volunteer Fire Department, Unionville Volunteer Fire Company, Portersville-Muddy Creek Township Volunteer Fire Department, Harrisville Volunteer Fire Company, West Sunbury Volunteer Fire Department, Butler Township Fire District, Mercer County’s Grove City Volunteer Fire Department and Pine Township Volunteer Fire Company, Venango County’s Clintonville Volunteer Fire Department and Lawrence County’s Scott Township Volunteer Fire Department responded.
