Victim identified in fatal Brighton Heights blaze
Authorities Thursday identified the victim of a weekend house fire on Pittsburgh’s North Side as Mark A. Jeselnick, 64.
Firefighters were dispatched around 5 a.m. Saturday to a home in the 300 block of Parviss Street in the city’s Brighton Heights neighborhood. When they arrived, they found the home engulfed in heavy smoke, with flames billowing from the structure’s roof and upper floors.
Firefighters searched for people trapped inside the home and found Jeselnick dead in a second-floor bedroom, Emily Bourne, a public safety spokeswoman, said.
Jeselnick was pronounced dead at the scene at 6:10 a.m., the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office said. The office has not yet determined his cause of death.
Firefighters had the blaze under control around 7 a.m.
The fire does not appear suspicious, Bourne told TribLive. Investigators believe the blaze could have started in the bedroom where Jeselnick was found dead.
The cause of the fire is under investigation, “but could potentially be due to an electrical failure,” Bourne said.
Jeselnick’s family did not respond Thursday to phone calls seeking comment.
Justin Vellucci is a TribLive reporter covering crime and public safety in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County. A longtime freelance journalist and former reporter for the Asbury Park (N.J.) Press, he worked as a general assignment reporter at the Trib from 2006 to 2009 and returned in 2022. He can be reached at jvellucci@triblive.com.
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