'Suspicious' fire burns vacant home in Jeannette

No one was injured Wednesday night during a fire in Jeannette at an abandoned house that is awaiting demolition and was used by firefighters over the weekend for training.

Jeannette police are investigating, according to Jeannette fire Chief Bill Frye.

“We’ll call it suspicious at this point, but we are not sure,” he said.

Firefighters from Jeannette and Penn Borough responded to the blaze on Magee Avenue around 8:20 p.m.

The home has had problems with squatters, and was the site of another suspicious fire on the first floor in January 2022, according to Frye.

“When we pulled up, the whole third floor was on fire,” he said. “We just did a quick search of the first floor, and the second floor, just to make sure that nobody was in there.

“Obviously, there are no utilities — it’s a vacant house — so somebody was in there for the fire to start.”

Late last week, Frye said he pulled the porch roof down because it was rotted, cracked and starting to collapse. That left firefighters with a unique opportunity — the ability to learn how to rescue someone pinned under a collapsed porch roof. That’s exactly what they did on Saturday.

“That’s a common issue in fires, guys are on the porch and the porch roof comes down,” he said.

Squatters have been an ongoing issue at the house. Between when the porch roof was pulled down and Saturday’s training, someone had broken into it, Frye said. The doors were screwed shut once again after the training was complete.

The home is slated for demolition through American Rescue Plan money from Westmoreland County. It’s not an uncommon issue for vacant homes to have multiple suspicious fires, he said, which leaves them a safety hazard. That’s part of the issue authorities are attempting to address through the funding, which has been set aside to address blight in seven communities.

No charges were filed in the January 2022 fire or Wednesday’s blaze.