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Fire in Minersville Sends Woman to the Hospital

MINERSVILLE —  A fire in Schuylkill County sent a woman to the hospital. Officials told Newswatch 16 the victim was burned when her home on Pine Hill Stre...

MINERSVILLE --  A fire in Schuylkill County sent a woman to the hospital.

Officials told Newswatch 16 the victim was burned when her home on Pine Hill Street in Minersville went up in flames just after 1 a.m. Tuesday morning.

Video posted to Facebook shows what firefighters faced early Tuesday morning: flames shooting from the windows and roof of a string of row homes along the 500 block of Pine Hill Street.

Jason Heffron has lived there for 36 years.

"I came out to see what was going on and saw the flames and I just got everyone out of my house."

Six people lost their homes.

The fire chief says everyone made it out, but one woman was burned. She has non-life threatening injuries and was flown to Lehigh Valley Hospital. That woman lives in the home where the fire apparently started.

Matthew Haslam lives just up the street. He heard the noise and went outside to see what was happening.

"It just looked like a big ball of fire. Fire was coming like ten feet out of the windows."

The fire chief in Minersville says he encountered a familiar situation: row homes with common attics. Not only was he worried the flames were going to consume the entire building, for a while, he feared the flames would jump three feet into the building next door.

"It gets in to the attics, a lot of homes in the borough , Schuylkill County, are common attics, so once it gets up in there, she can run both ways, take the roof right off of them," said Minersville Fire Chief Eric Eichenberg.

And that's why this fire went to three alarms, and that's why the chief called in help from surrounding communities.

Heffron's home has heavy damage, but he is thankful he and his mother can salvage some of their belongings.

"Move on, get another house, move on from there."

No firefighters were hurt.

Officials haven't said what may have sparked the fire in Schuylkill County on Tuesday.

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