Neighbor describes 'war'-like explosion that destroyed Sewickley Heights cottage

Rich Engler was sitting with a friend in his Sewickley Heights home when the neighborhood shook.

“All of a sudden, this immense blast took place — we thought something had hit our place,” said Engler, 77, a local music producer who’s lived among the borough’s massive estates and rolling hills for 40 years. “There was that kind of impact. The house shook. We thought for sure a jet had crashed on takeoff or landing.”

It turns out a contractor was working on a Backbone Road cottage’s furnace around 5 p.m. Tuesday when an explosion demolished the structure and filled Sewickley Heights’ pastoral skies with smoke. The man, who authorities have not named, remained hospitalized Wednesday afternoon, the extent of his injuries unknown.

The Allegheny County Fire Marshal is leading the investigation.

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• Cottage on Sewickley Heights estate explodes; 1 person hospitalized

Immediately after the Tuesday blast, Engler looked out a nearby window. Some 40 acres away, plumes of smoke ascended from the site of the blast. Engler called 911 — it was 5:19 p.m. — and rushed to the scene.

The air around 543 Backbone Road when Engler arrived by car was thick with smoke, he said. Dusk was starting to obscure Engler’s view. He remembered thinking that he smelled smoke but no natural gas.

“Is anybody here?” he shouted repeatedly. “Is anybody here?”

Then, a “faint, distant voice” called out: “Help me!”

Engler walked around the property, looking for anyone who might have been injured. But the smoke was too thick to see anything.

Eventually, the owner of the main house on the property appeared. The explosion in the cottage nearby had woken him from sleep.

The two men then tracked that faint voice to the back porch of the main house where they found the contractor, who Engler called an HVAC technician. His hands “were all burnt up,” Engler said. His hair was singed.

“How in the world did you make it out alive?” Engler blurted out.

“I don’t know,” the man replied, clearly in shock.

The man was one of three contractors working on the furnace in the basement of the property’s carriage house at the time, Allegheny County spokeswoman Amie Downs said Wednesday. Valley EMS took him to a local hospital, where he remained Wednesday afternoon.

Downs said the man had suffered “burns to his body.” She did not elaborate.

The cottage was leveled — a total loss.

“When I say it was obliterated, there wasn’t even a foundation,” Engler said. “There was debris in the trees 150 feet away. This was a blast you’d only see in a war.”

Aleppo fire Chief Bill Davis Jr. said the main house on the property, a 7,093-square-foot mansion that sits about 500 feet away from the cottage, was not affected. A husband and wife inside the mansion weren’t hurt.

The fire marshal continued investigating the explosion — seeking the explosion’s origin and cause — Wednesday, Downs said. The fire marshal is working with the Pennsylvania Utility Commission and Columbia Gas.

Local police and firefighters are assisting with the investigation.

The scene of the house explosion was quiet Wednesday — and controlled.

Sewickley Heights officials hired AWP Safety, a private security firm with offices throughout the U.S., to control traffic near the property on Backbone Road. Two men in fluorescent vests used traffic cones to block access to property, allowing only residents to pass.

Officials did not name the couple who owns the Backbone Road property where the cottage exploded. Borough Manager Nate Briggs said he did not know their whereabouts Wednesday.

“Emotionally, they’re distraught,” Briggs said. “Physically, they’re fine.”

County real estate records show the Backbone Road property was purchased by Winward Partners of Sewickley for nearly $1.8 million in 2010.

Columbia Gas crews responded to the explosion Tuesday night and shut off gas to the home as a precaution, Columbia spokesman Lee Gierczynski said. No other customers were impacted.

Columbia had no technicians working at the residence, nor were any crews working in the Sewickley Heights area Tuesday, Gierczynski said.

It does not appear that any Columbia Gas distribution facilities were involved, he said.

Sewickley Heights police did not return phone calls Wednesday seeking comment. Engler said that’s the Sewickley Heights he knows.

“This is why I live in Sewickley Heights — we’re all kind of private,” he said. “We’re friendly and we see each other occasionally. But we don’t really communicate.”