{"id":58707,"date":"2025-12-12T03:15:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T03:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/58707\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T03:15:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T03:15:12","slug":"crews-from-multiple-counties-battle-3-alarm-blaze-in-southern-berks-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/58707\/","title":{"rendered":"Crews from multiple counties battle 3-alarm blaze in southern Berks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Fire crews from Berks and Lancaster counties teamed up to battle a blaze that broke out late Monday at a former furniture store along Route 625 in Brecknock Township.<\/p>\n<p>The fire was discovered shortly before 10 p.m. at the former Griffith &amp; Bixler store, 4444 New Holland Road. After that store closed, the building became a location for David\u2019s Furniture &amp; Interiors, but that business closed down before the fire.<\/p>\n<p>Brandon Zerman, assistant chief of Brecknock Township Fire Company, said a portion of the building was under renovation by the current owner, and another portion was being used for storage by a window-installation company across the street.<\/p>\n<p>Zerman said the first-arriving crews knew they had a battle on their hands and called for additional alarms. The fire had entered the void space between the roof and ceiling.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt ran the whole roofline,\u201d Zerman said. \u201cThat was one of the biggest challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Crews had difficulty attacking the roof fire because the floor space is divided by many walls, he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe went to a third alarm,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was one of the coldest nights we\u2019ve had this year, which slowed the water supply and created icy conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" lazyautosizes lazyload\" alt=\"A former furniture store along Route 625 in Brecknock Township lies damaged Tuesday morning following a three-alarm blaze. (Bill Uhrich - Reading Eagle) \" width=\"4032\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1765509312_20_Brecknock-fire-2.jpeg\" data-attachment-id=\"1431193\" \/><\/p>\n<p>(Bill Uhrich &#8211; Reading Eagle<\/p>\n<p>A former furniture store along Route 625 in Brecknock Township lies damaged Tuesday morning following a three-alarm blaze. (Bill Uhrich \u2013 Reading Eagle)<\/p>\n<p>The companies called to the fire worked seamlessly rotating through fire attack, ventilation and overhaul to maintain momentum, he said.<\/p>\n<p>Route 625 was closed until after daybreak between Route 568 and Mifflin Drive.<\/p>\n<p>After nearly six hours of sustained operations, crews brought the fire under control. No injuries were reported.<\/p>\n<p>Crews from the Cumru Township, Spring Township, Exeter Township and Western Berks fire departments assisted Brecknock firefighters along with the Mohnton, Kenhorst, Shillington, Geigertown and Gibraltar fire companies.<\/p>\n<p>They were joined by Lancaster crews from Adamstown, Cocalico, Caernarvon, Bowmansville, Reinholds, Churchtown, Fivepointsville, Martindale and Weaverland Valley.<\/p>\n<p>Canteen units from the Salvation Army in Boyertown and North Penn Goodwill Service in Montgomery County provided volunteers with hot food and drinks.<\/p>\n<p>A state police fire marshal investigated and determined the fire was accidental, but couldn\u2019t pinpoint the precise cause. A damage estimated was unavailable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fire crews from Berks and Lancaster counties teamed up to battle a blaze that broke out late Monday&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,182,139,28,128,130,129,3801],"class_list":{"0":"post-58707","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-berks-county","9":"tag-local-news","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-pennsylvania","12":"tag-reading-city","13":"tag-reading-city-headlines","14":"tag-reading-city-news","15":"tag-top-stories-dln"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58707","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=58707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}