Jozef Korzeniewski and Drew Miller
3 days ago
Three people were injured, including two teenagers, after a house fire near the Erie-Warren County line Sunday afternoon.
Calls for a house fire in the 60 block of West Main Street in Columbus Township, Warren County, went out just after 2 pm with at least two people home at the time.
Officials said a teenage boy and girl, along with their father, were inside a home located at 65 West Main Street in Columbus, Pennsylvania, when the fire broke out around two sunday afternoon.
Both teenagers were removed from the structure. The girl was flown by helicopter to Pittsburgh to be treated.
“We’ve been on scene for about two hours now. We were tapped out for a structure fire here in Columbus, with entrapment. When the firefighters got on scene, they pulled two teenagers out,” said City of Corry Safety Director Drew Sproveri.
Sproveri said the home’s large size, numerous contents and hidden spaces made it difficult for firefighters to reach and extinguish the flames.
“Everyone is out, a lot of voids in the house, so we can’t get to all of the fire. The house is quite a ways off the road, so we can’t get a ladder truck in there to ventilate the roof properly,” he said.
One firefighter was also treated for minor injuries after the initial rescue.
“One of the initial firefighters on scene was making the rescue on the young girl, and he injured his elbow and took some smoke inhalation in,” Spoveri continued. “The house was probably built in the 1800s. So heavy timber, plank ceilings, so it’s very difficult to pull down and get to the fire.”
The cause of the fire has not yet been determined and the current conditions of the three victims are unknown at this time.
The firefighter Sproveri said was treated and seems to be doing okay after the initial injury.