Natrona blaze burns tax office, four other buildings
Hilltop Hose Fire Chief Jeff Balog yawned after more than 11 hours at the fire scene, then trudged back into the ruined tax office along Chestnut Street in Natrona.
Balog and his brother Justin, a fire captain, helped employees at township tax collector Michael D. McKechnie's office remove paperwork and a soaked computer tower.
Volunteers from seven fire companies spent several hours limiting the spread of an extremely hot fire that burned five buildings, among them McKechnie's office and the former Natrona post office.
Although initial reports early Thursday indicated that no one lived in any of the buildings, which sat along Chestnut Street and across an alley on Pond Street, one man was left homeless.
The blaze broke out shortly before midnight. By morning, the Hilltop officers met with investigators.
"We're investigating this as if it's an arson," said Don Brucker, Allegheny County's chief deputy fire marshal.
The fire started in a vacant, unlocked apartment where an arson happened two years ago. Several 16-year-old youths were arrested for setting that fire, Brucker said.
Brucker said the building had no working utilities, which is an indicator of possible arson.
Brucker asks anyone with information about how the fire started to call Harrison police or the county's anonymous tip number.
An unidentified witness told investigators he saw and heard the blaze. When he took a few steps into the building, he saw a "pile of debris on fire."
That part of the building was thoroughly burned and the floor collapsed into the basement. So Brucker and his dog, which can smell minute traces of gasoline and other fire-starting chemicals, could only walk around the perimeter searching for evidence.
"The building needs to be razed," he said.
By yesterday afternoon, township crews were knocking down the old post office building.
Balog and the firefighters "did a fine job" stopping the blaze from spreading, according to Brucker.
Flames were shooting high above the building when the first fire company arrived.
"This was a very fast-spreading fire," Brucker said.
"In my 18-year career as a firefighter, I've never seen anything like it," Chief Balog said. "The fire was so intense and so hot that the heat started (to burn) the other buildings, not flames."
Balog said two firefighters were treated for minor injuries, which he declined to specify.
Balog said the fire displaced a man, whom he did not identify, from his apartment at 47 Chestnut St.
"The Red Cross is helping him," he said.
The fire started in the Chestnut Street building and the heat caused adjacent old, dry timber and long-abandoned contents to burst into flame.
A yellow brick facade is all that remains of one building constructed in 1910.
Two doors away, what remains of the township tax collector's office at 49 Chestnut St. is a mixture of soaked and charred wood and paper.
McKechnie's telephone number rang busy all day yesterday. Calls weren't forwarded to another number. The tax collection agency that he has used didn't have another number for McKechnie.
A woman with a key to the building was moving items out of the tax office yesterday morning. She said she didn't know where McKechnie was or where a new office would be set up.
Officials at the Harrison Township Municipal Building didn't have information about a new tax office telephone number.
Attempts to reach the property owners were unsuccessful.
Last night, firefighters were called back to the scene to douse a spot that had rekindled.
Additional Information:
Authorities seek tips
Anyone with information about the Chestnut and Pond streets fire is asked to call the Allegheny County fire marshal's anonymous tip line at 412-473-2776 or Harrison police at 724-224-3355.
