MUHLENBERG TWP., Pa. \u2013 The Pennsylvania State Police fire marshal says a massive fire that forced dozens of people from an apartment complex in Muhlenberg Township has been ruled an accident.<\/p>\n
The rubble remains where parts of the Oak Forest Apartments once stood, and now, more than a month after a massive fire, investigators say an electrical malfunction sparked it.<\/p>\n
“We’ve come to the conclusion that this is an accidental fire,\u201d said Corey Heimbach, the Pennsylvania State Police fire marshal for Troop L.<\/p>\n
Investigators spent weeks examining the scene, reviewing photos and videos, and conducting interviews.<\/p>\n
“Canvassing through all the debris, looking at fire patterns, looking at mechanical components such as the electricity, the HVAC \u2014 all that stuff,\u201d Heimbach said.<\/p>\n
Authorities say apartment G-9 is where the where the fire was discovered, and they say the fire started in the space above the ceiling of the second-floor apartment.<\/p>\n
“And the only competent ignition source within that area is electrical components,\u201d Heimbach said.<\/p>\n
The apartment was built in the 1960s, before many of today’s fire standards were in place.<\/p>\n
“Obviously, fire codes, building codes, standards, you know, technology \u2014 all that stuff has changed over time,” Heimbach said.<\/p>\n
So, was the building up to code?<\/p>\n
“They meet all the codes for the codes that they were constructed under,\u201d Heimbach said. \u201cHowever, if a major renovation was to occur, they would have to then bring those buildings up to present code.”<\/p>\n
People affected by the fire who need help can apply for special, low interest loans through the Small Business Administration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MUHLENBERG TWP., Pa. \u2013 The Pennsylvania State Police fire marshal says a massive fire that forced dozens of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250070,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[106725,973,103881,128,130,129],"class_list":["post-250069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-electrical-malfunction","tag-muhlenberg-township","tag-oak-forest-apartments","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250069","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=250069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}