'IT'S LIKE A NIGHTMARE'
WEST LIBERTY — A Tuesday afternoon fire destroyed a two-story log and stone “dream home” on a private dirt road in the borough.
The fire at Michael Green's home on Martin Road started about 3 p.m., and firefighters remained at the scene until 6 p.m.
“It was beautiful,” Green said of the house before the fire consumed it.
Green said he tore down a log home on the property in 1993 and has been slowly building a new home on the site.“I've been working on it since then,” Green said.He said he lives a couple miles away and hadn't moved into the house, which was not insured.Green said he was working on a backhoe behind the house when he noticed fire coming from the area of a pile of wood along a side of the home. He said his cell phone was near the area where the fire started, so he ran to a neighbor's house to call 911, but the neighbor wasn't home. Eventually, someone was able to call 911.“It's like a nightmare,” Green said.Family members said Green cut a huge, curved tree from the woods around the house and used it to make a spiral staircase.They said the house was his dream home.
Firefighters saw smoke from the fire from three miles away as they approached the scene, said Travis Wunsch, assistant chief of the Slippery Rock Volunteer Fire Department.“When we arrived, we found a two-story structure that was fully involved,” Wunsch said.Firefighters initially attacked the fire using three hoses and a deck gun mounted on top of one of the fire trucks, and then began a defensive attack on the flames on the exterior of the home, he said.Tanker trucks were used to bring water to the scene because there are no fire hydrants in the area, Wunsch said.Fire trucks got stuck in the dirt road approaching the home, he added.Neither the property owner nor any firefighters were injured.State police fire marshals were called to determine the cause of the blaze, Wunsch said.Firefighters from the Portersville, Unionville, West Sunbury and Harrisville volunteer fire departments responded, along with the Pine Township Volunteer Department from Mercer County and the Scott Township Volunteer Fire Department from Lawrence County.
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