SCRANTON \u2014 Armed with only a fire extinguisher and handfuls of snow, a Scranton recycling crew jumped into action Friday morning to douse a porch fire before it could consume a West Side home.<\/p>\n
Department of Public Works employees Charles Dukerich and Justin Krukowski didn\u2019t think twice about climbing from their truck and immediately alerting the sleeping residents of the Hampton Street house just after 6:30 a.m.<\/p>\n
Steamtown Church pastor Dennis D\u2019Augostine, who heard the truck\u2019s horn blaring, called the crew \u201ctrue heroes\u201d and believes a family would have lost their lives if it hadn\u2019t been for the workers\u2019 quick thinking.<\/p>\n
\u201cGod provided the snow and the men provided the manpower,\u201d said D\u2019Augostine, who also serves as the chaplain of the city\u2019s Fire Department.<\/p>\n
Just because the holidays are over doesn\u2019t mean people can\u2019t continue in the Christmas spirit, Krukowski said.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s keep it going,\u201d he said. \u201cLet\u2019s keep the good going.\u201d<\/p>\n
The men\u2019s response didn\u2019t surprise supervisor Robb McClay, who said the crews were the \u201ceyes and ears\u201d of the city.<\/p>\n
And, although not classified as first responders, the crews are true public servants, city officials said.<\/p>\n
Dukerich, who was driving the truck, said he first thought there was fog coming from the house before realizing it was smoke.<\/p>\n
He first called in fire crews before making his way from the truck to help put the fire out.<\/p>\n
What most impressed D\u2019Augostine was that, after the fire was out and fire crews had arrived, the DPW workers got back in their truck to continue their day.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll see them again next Friday,\u201d Krukowski said of the street\u2019s residents.<\/p>\n
Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti stopped by to congratulate the DPW workers, saying she was proud of them but not surprised by their laudable actions.<\/p>\n
D\u2019Augostine said people are often blessed in ways they don\u2019t expect.<\/p>\n
Just when people were getting over snow-lined streets, the snow was just the thing needed to put out a fire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCRANTON \u2014 Armed with only a fire extinguisher and handfuls of snow, a Scranton recycling crew jumped into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[201,182,139,28,178,180,179],"class_list":{"0":"post-119411","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-lackawanna-county","9":"tag-local-news","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-pennsylvania","12":"tag-scranton","13":"tag-scranton-headlines","14":"tag-scranton-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}