Fire marshal: Stove may have caused fatal New Kensington fire

A stove being used to heat a New Kensington home may have caused a fire in which a woman died this month, a state police fire marshal said Thursday.

Angel A. Gray, 49, died in the March 6 fire in a duplex at 554 Fourth Ave.

Her husband, Bob Gray, said the furnace in their half of the duplex had been out all winter. He said they had been using two electric space heaters, but denied the fire marshal’s statement that they were using the stove to heat their home.

The fire was reported shortly before 6 p.m. Angel Gray was dead when a firefighter pulled her out of the building, fire Chief Ed Saliba Jr. had said.

According to Bob Gray, they had been at a nearby friend’s home before the fire broke out, and Angel had gone home first because she was tired. He saw his home of two years engulfed in flames upon coming out a little later, he said. Police stopped him from running in for Angel.

The fire marshal, state police Trooper Keith Sobecki, said the fire started at 554 Fourth Ave., the side of the duplex occupied by the Grays. The other half, 552 Fourth Ave., was empty.

The cause of the fire has been ruled undetermined with no suspicious circumstances, Sobecki said. The structure was a complete loss.

“Due to the extensive damage from the fire and the partial collapse of the structure, a more definitive cause was unable to be determined,” Sobecki said.

The fire spread to 558 Fourth Ave., a three-story building that also was empty. It previously housed a doctor’s office.

“That structure is also a complete loss due to partial collapse as well,” he said.

Sobecki initially said the stove in the Grays’ home was gas, “and there is suspicion that the stove may have been the cause, but the kitchen area is under the collapsed part of the structure.”

Bob Gray said the stove was electric, not gas. Sobecki said it may have been electric, “but it was under all the debris.”

“The heat was not working,” Sobecki said. “That is why the stove was being used.”

Bob Gray said they never used the stove for heat, and that they were in the kitchen only when cooking because of the lack of heat. Because of that, he said the couple stayed in the living room and bedroom.

“We never had it (the stove) on all the time,” he said. Angel “might have been getting ready to cook something.”

Bob Gray said he has heard 10 different stories about the cause of the fire.

“I’ve heard so many stories,” he said. “There’s been a lot of stories.”