{"id":6248,"date":"2025-10-17T20:01:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T20:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/6248\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T20:01:17","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T20:01:17","slug":"investigation-underway-into-fire-that-killed-elderly-bensalem-man-then-put-itself-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/6248\/","title":{"rendered":"Investigation underway into fire that killed elderly Bensalem man, then put itself out"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bensalem fire officials are investigating what caused a fire that killed an elderly Bensalem man and his pets, before it apparently put itself out.<\/p>\n

The Bucks County Coroner’s Office confirmed Thursday an autopsy determined that 77-year-old Allan Schoppy died of smoke and soot inhalation and ruled his death as accidental.<\/p>\n

Bensalem Fire Rescue responded to a report of a house fire in the 3000 block of Gilbert Drive on Tuesday Oct. 14 shortly before 2 p.m.<\/p>\n

But when firefighters arrived at the home, they did not see any smoke or fire, according to a post on Crimewatch.<\/a> But they did notice dark soot on the interior of the home’s windows.<\/p>\n

\"Bensalem<\/p>\n

Bensalem Fire Rescue company is investigating a fire in the 300 block of Gilbert Drive that killed an elderly man and his pets overnight Tuesday Oct. 14, 2025.<\/p>\n

When they entered through the front door of the home, they found Schoppy dead in a living room chair. His pet dog and cat were also found dead in the home.<\/p>\n

A preliminary investigation determined that the fire appears to have happened overnight and self-extinguished, according to the post. The cause of the fire has not been determined, but it does not appear to be suspicious the post said.<\/p>\n

On Thursday Bensalem Fire Chief Mark Antozzeski said the fire remains under investigation and declined further comment.<\/p>\n

More Bucks County News Perkasie man admits to DUI accident that killed former firefighter, sprint car driver<\/a><\/p>\n

(This story has been updated to add new information.)<\/p>\n

Reporter Jo Ciavaglia can be reached at jciavaglia@gannett.com<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Bensalem fire kills man, pets, but firefighters didn’t put it out<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bensalem fire officials are investigating what caused a fire that killed an elderly Bensalem man and his pets,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6249,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[5611,191,193,192,194,5612,5613],"class_list":["post-6248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bensalem","tag-allan-schoppy","tag-bensalem","tag-bensalem-headlines","tag-bensalem-news","tag-bensalem-township","tag-house-fire","tag-smoke-or-fire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6248","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=6248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}