UPDATED: Busy night in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Bowling alley & diner destroyed in separate fires.
The video above, shot by FireTruckBlog.com's Glenn Usdin, is from the second of two major fires during the 9:00 hour Wednesday night, about 16 miles apart in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
Here's the information posted with the video from East Hempfield Township:
A suspicious fire destroyed the West Lancaster Diner on Columbia Avenue in Lancaster PA around 10:00 PM on May 4th, 2011. FD units were dispatched and told to stay back as this was an arson/robbery fire and the scene was not secure. Arriving companies had fire through the roof and after a few minutes the PD notified companies that the scene was safe to begin extinguishing the blaze. By now the fire had complete control of the building. One patient was transported to Lancaster General Hospital and it was reported that he was soaked in gasoline. As the fire was being knocked down, another call came in for an armed person barricaded in a nearby home, also soaked in gasoline. PD and fire units were on the scene there and no further details were available at the time of this posting.
In Strasburg, Pennsylvania a fire was reported about 40 minutes earlier at the Garden Spot Bowling Alley. The fire went to three-alarms. Here is an excerpt from an article at LancasterOnline.com:
Strasburg Assistant Fire Chief John Stoltzfus said he encountered heavy smoke and flames coming through the roof when he arrived at the scene. He said firefighters tried to mount an interior attack but were "blown back" from the front door by heavy flames.
