Woman escapes house fire in village of Claridge in Penn Township

A historic home in Claridge was destroyed Thursday morning in a fire and a woman who lived there escaped with minor injuries, according to first responders.

Claridge Fire Chief Ron Supancic Jr. said he believed the blaze started on the first floor. Part of the second floor collapsed.

“When we rounded the bend there, it was … all fire,” he said.

The flames were reported just before 7 a.m. at the intersection of Claridge-Elliott and Dutch Hollow Roads. The home is set back from the road by a narrow driveway and pond, which made accessing it a challenge, Supancic said. The woman who escaped told authorities that she woke up to find a couch on fire and fled after unsuccessfully trying to put the flames out.

She refused treatment.

Family members have set up a GoFundMe page for the woman with a goal of raising $30,000.

Township emergency management coordinator Paul Wersing and police Chief John Otto said it was one of the original houses in the village, not far from Harrison City. Wersing said he believed it at one time belonged to a mine boss in the coal patch town.

“It has historic value to Claridge,” he said.

It was known as the Kew House in a section of the village nicknamed Kewtown, according to according to a 1994 inventory on historic sites conducted by America’s Industrial Heritage Project, an effort of the National Park Service. Deed records showed the home was owned by the Kew family decades ago.

It was a well-constructed house, Supancic said.

“I think it’s going to be a total loss,” he said.

State police fire marshals were investigating the cause.

Claridge was once home to a number of coal mines, with one of the earliest ones producing nearly 153,000 tons of coal in 1897, according to the project inventory. The town had a peak population of 2,500 people in the 1910s and the mines employed dozens of workers. The Claridge mine was closed by Keystone Coke & Coal Co. in 1923.