NANTICOKE, Pa. — Heavy smoke was seen for miles as flames tore through a duplex on Keech Street in Nanticoke.
The fire chief says they responded around 1:40 p.m. Tuesday afternoon, and when they arrived, the fire already started to spread to another home next door.
"We were able to stop the fire at the adjoining house. We kept it just to the exterior of the building, but the fire building itself is a total loss," said Chief Mark Boncal, Nanticoke City Fire Department.
Jana Capps lives on the other side of the house on fire. She says she smelled smoke, then saw the flames coming out of her neighbor's house and was worried that the fire would spread.
"I just threw my dog in the car and what I needed to take and went up and parked in the parking lot," said Jana Capps, Nanticoke.
Her concerns became reality because the fire spread from the house, igniting a brush fire in a nearby wooded area.
"The wind conditions and everything else, a lot of the embers that were coming off the burning building, the wind just took it," explained Chief Boncal.
A man and his dog live on the right side of the home and were able to get out safely while the other side of the home was vacant.
Capps says she spoke with her neighbor about what he heard just before the fire started, "He said that he heard somebody next door, and nobody lives next door."
The fire chief says a state police fire marshal will investigate the cause of the fire, and the home will most likely be torn down soon.
Detectives with the Nanticoke Police Department say they, too, are investigating.
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