Occupant, pets escape house fire in Norwood
NORWOOD — A two-storey house in Asphodel-Norwood Township at 115 County Rd. 40 was heavily damaged by a fire that broke out at around 1 p.m. Wednesday.
One person was asleep inside the home at the time the fire broke out and was able to escape with all the family pets, said Asphodel-Norwood Township Fire Chief Darryl Payne.
No one was injured and the cause is not considered to be suspicious.
The fire caused extensive damage to the home, which took about two hours for firefighters to get under control.
“We are just hitting hot spots, but there is always a chance of it to rekindle,” he said. “It was a tough fire because it was an attic fire and we had trouble accessing the attic.”
About 20 firefighters from Asphodel-Norwood’s two stations along with six trucks were called in to get the fire under control.
A complete search of the home was hard to do, Payne said.
“Firefighters did a complete search of the first floor and the basement, and we couldn’t get into the second floor because the stairs had burned out,” he said.
Firefighters had to make their entry to the second floor through a window and completed their search for other occupants in the house at the time of the fire, he said.
Firefighters had to cut holes into the roof of the structure to douse the fire that had started in the attic.
Payne said upon arriving at the house fire, extensive smoke could be seen to the east of the structure and throughout the entire structure.
There is no damage estimate now, he said, and he could not ascertain the cause of the blaze as it was too early to tell.
“We are still investigating,” Payne said. “It is still too early to tell; we still have a working fire here.”