Woman to face arson charges for Thursday house fire
CONNOQUENESSING — A 29-year-old woman is suspected of intentionally setting fire to a mobile home where she lived with her boyfriend, his mother and his son.
Jolene L. Schirra faces arson and other charges in the fire early Thursday morning that destroyed the home in the 1200 block of Route 68 in Connoquenessing, state police said.
Schirra’s boyfriend, Robert Gongloff Sr., 50, was flown to a Pittsburgh hospital for smoke inhalation after he rushed back into the house apparently fearing his girlfriend had not gotten out.
But Schirra was safe in a car in the home’s driveway.
Trooper DuWayne Baird, a deputy fire marshal, said this morning that he believes the suspect likely watched Gongloff go into the flame-engulfed trailer home looking for her.
“From where the car was in the driveway,” Baird said, “she could have seen it.”
Baird declined to discuss a motive, but he said that Schirra and Gongloff had gotten into an argument a short time before the fire, which started in their bedroom at the back of the trailer.
Police also suspect Schirra was possibly impaired by drugs when she allegedly set the fire.
Gongloff’s condition was not known this morning, but he was “doing well,” Baird said. His mother, Janet Gongloff, and his 26-year-old son, Robert Gongloff Jr., were not injured.
Schirra also was unharmed in the fire but several hours later she ended up at Butler Memorial Hospital for a mental health evaluation, police said.
At the hospital, she tried to bite and punch two troopers and spit at them, according to court documents.
Police that afternoon charged Schirra with felony and misdemeanor assault in connection with the fracas at the hospital.
