Three fires in seven hours in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. Two women dead in New Philadelphia rowhouse. Warehouse destroyed in Schuylkill Haven. Religious resort burns in West Penn Township.
There were three major fires in seven hours in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania overnight. The last of the fires, at 5:30 AM, killed two women. The earlier fires were at a warehouse and a religious retreat. The video above focuses on the double fatal in New Philadelphia and gives a summary of the other fires (below is the raw video from each of those fires).
Here’s a rundown of the fires from The Morning Call:
The first fire at a warehouse in Schuylkill Haven was reported around 11:20 p.m. Wednesday and required a large-scale tanker operation involving at least 20 trucks from Berks and Schuylkill counties to bring water to the site.
Around 3 a.m. Thursday, some of the firefighters in Schuylkill Haven had to be reassigned to West Penn Township where a massive fire seen from several miles away consumed a large worship hall on the 375-acre Blue Mountain Christian Retreat north of Route 895 off Blue Mountain Drive in West Penn Township. The building, which is about 300 feet long, is the main building to the retreat and houses a worship hall, guest rooms, a dining hall and other shared facilities.
Because of the rural location of the retreat just over the Lehigh County line north of Route 895 off Blue Mountain Drive, firefighters also had to use tanker trucks to bring water to the fire. But the building was beyond saving by the time firefighters arrived.
While firefighters were still at warehouse and church fires, a third fire began tearing through several row homes in New Philadelphia around 5:30 a.m.
Seven row homes in the unit block of Water Street were destroyed or damaged, and the two women who died lived together in one of them.
