Mt. Pleasant Township family of 5 loses everything in house fire, clothing collection started

A home in the Mt. Pleasant Township village of Hecla was destroyed in a fire Friday evening, and a neighboring fire company is collecting donations for the family.

The blaze was reported around 6:30 p.m. in an old, two-story former “company home” off Hecla Road on Academy Lane.

Hecla Assistant Fire Chief Michael Meloy said the structure, which hearkened back to the town’s coal mining days, collapsed. Only a couple sections of the exterior still stood Saturday, with the rest reduced to rubble.

“The top floor was pretty well involved when I got there, ” he said.

No one was home at the time. The family’s dog died in the blaze. A post on the Calumet Fire Department’s Facebook page identified them as the Breakiron family.

The collapse sent debris across the narrow, one-lane road, prompting township crews to use heavy machinery to clear it, Meloy said. Firefighters from numerous departments spent several hours there extinguishing the flames and then a rekindle of the fire in the small community that is north of Mt. Pleasant Borough and not far from Norvelt.

During that time, firefighters contended with a live power line swinging through the scene and wrapping around a fire hydrant, narrow roads that made it difficult to get firetrucks in place, icy conditions and pumping enough water to the house to extinguish the flames.

All of the departments worked well together, Meloy said.

“It was a big fire,” he said.

A state police fire marshal is investigating the cause.

Calumet Fire Chief Dan Sterf said his department is collecting clothing donations for two adults and three children. He works with one of the adults, and other family members are friends with them.

“The only clothes they have was what they had on,” he said.

Helping them out was the right thing to do, Sterf said. As of late Saturday morning, they had been getting a lot of phone calls from people who felt the same way.

”They lost everything,” Sterf said. “It just went up like a tinder box.”

Anyone wishing to donate clothing can do so at the Calumet fire station at 4143 Route 981, Calumet.

Men’s clothing is needed in sizes extra large and large, pants size 36x34 and 32x30 and size 10 and 12 shoes. Women’s clothing is needed in sizes extra large, large and medium and shoe sizes 7 and 7 1/2.