A Cheswick house fire Friday killed a family’s two dogs and destroyed almost everything owned by a couple who are planning to marry this spring.
Kayla Fischerkeller and Ryan Brittingham were at work when the fire engulfed their house about 10:20 a.m. Their two children, ages 3 and 5, were at their grandmother’s house.
“Everything is gone,” Cindy Fischerkeller, Kayla’s mother, said as she clutched a photo album of her grandchildren outside the burning house. “They were just getting started. They were getting married in May.”
Firefighters retrieved Kayla Fischerkeller’s wedding dress, but it sustained smoke damage. They also found the wedding rings and a jewelry box.
Thick smoke poured from the roof and doors of the single-story modular house in the 1600 block of Beech Street when a police officer first arrived at the scene.
Allegheny Valley Patrolman Craig Cummings said he didn’t see any cars parked at the house, and no one replied when he knocked on the doors and checked the locks.
“The smoke was too thick to go in,” he said.
Cheswick Volunteer Fire Department Lt. Donald Trebac said it was unclear where the fire started and what caused it.
“When we got there, fire was already coming through the roof,” he said.
Firefighters said the dogs, Rocket and Nala, were found at the back of the house.
Although the fire was limited to one house, smoke slipped into the eaves of a house next door — prompting some neighbors to call Allegheny County 911 to report the blaze had spread to a second house.
It didn’t.
Justin Fantuzzo, who owns the neighboring house, said his home sustained smoke damage.
“We weren’t allowed to go back inside until the firemen said so,” Fantuzzo said.
Fantuzzo said a relative who was at home woke up and saw the fire and called him.
Trebac said volunteers from 11 fire companies kept the fire from spreading past some bushes separating the house from one next door. The blaze was under control about 11 a.m.
The cause is under investigation by the Allegheny County Fire Marshal’s office, Trebac said.
The fire was the first of two to heavily damage an Alle-Kiski Valley house Friday morning. A fire started about an hour later at a house on Upper Burrell’s Lincoln Boulevard.
