POTTSVILLE, Pa. — A fire on Thursday night caused a building to collapse and left people without a place to live in Schuylkill County.
The Wire Tele View building collapsed during an intense fire along East Market Street in Pottsville. Crews were back on Friday morning. Clearing away debris so investigators could search for a cause of the fire that took hours to get under control after a gas leak caused delays when the building collapsed.
"UGI came to the scene. It took UGI a couple of hours because the first attempts to shut off wouldn't shut off, so they had to dig the street up; we had to move fire apparatus, and we were monitoring the fire as we were going, but as soon as UGI got that secured, we got the fire out with the gas and we went back and did overhaul and we just kept crew here overnight," said Chief James Misstishin with Pottsville Fire Department.
Four homes damaged in the fire had to be condemned.
"You wouldn't want to saw me last night. I'm good friends with the mayor in town here, and he had to calm me down because I was out of it," said Jim Darosh, a Homeowner.
Jim and Kitty Darosh have lived in their home for most of their life. It was passed down to them from Jim's parents.
"We just feel like we were sucker punched. It's horrible. That bad a fire. The flames were horrendous, and the black smoke was horrible, and then the walls started falling every which way," added Darosh.
The Daroshes were just grateful for the American Red Cross, giving them a place to stay, food, and new clothes.
"Every little bit helps. If you have good people that you work with, that's gonna be a big plus too, and I'm kind of confident that the people that are surrounding us right now are going to get us what we need," said Darosh.
Officials say the cause of the fire is still under investigation, but no injuries have been reported.