ALTOONA, Pa. — The worst fire in this central Pennsylvania city since the 1970s tore through a second-floor apartment and killed five people early Tuesday, spewing flames visible across the city, officials said.
The victims died of smoke inhalation, Blair County Coroner Patricia Ross said.
The red brick home was already engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived from a station about two blocks away about 6:45 a.m., said Deputy Fire Chief Tim Hileman. The cause is still under investigation.
Blair’s office identified the victims as: Thomas Boyles, 57; his stepson Baron Richard Snyder Sr., 40; Christopher Alvord, 23; Warren Arthur Carter Jr., 35; and Joey Allen Middaugh, 17. All of them lived in the second-floor apartment of the two-story duplex except Middaugh, a Huntingdon resident who was visiting his friend Alvord.
Three people escaped from the first floor, where smoke alarms were ringing. The building passed code inspection two months ago and had smoke detectors, but it was unclear whether they were working on the second floor at the time of the fire, Hileman said.
“This is one the most tragic fire events in my career in the city,” Hileman, a 13-year Altoona veteran, said at an afternoon news conference.
It took about an hour for 30 firefighters to get the blaze under control on a dead-end street in a middle-class neighborhood near downtown in the city of about 45,000 people. Some firefighters went through several breathing devices because they didn’t want to stop searching for survivors, Hileman told the Altoona Mirror.
Police would not say whether the fire was suspicious but are treating the building as a crime scene, Sgt. Benjamin Jones said.
Kara Nale, who lives in the neighborhood with her family, said she knew everyone who lived in the apartment. Her father woke her in the morning to tell her about the fire.
“I didn’t know what to think at first. I looked out my bedroom window, and all I saw was the entire house engulfed in flames,” she said, fighting back tears at times.
Nale called her friend Middaugh “an all-around good guy.
“If you ever needed something, he was just there for you,” she said.
Middaugh was scheduled to work a 7 a.m. shift as a contractor, said another neighbor, Lorie Kehoe, whose son worked with Middaugh. Kehoe’s family was organizing a relief fund to help the victims’ families pay for funeral expenses.
Neighbors talked about how Snyder, who had rented the apartment for about a year, loved karaoke and would have parties at the home. Several neighbors referred to him by the nickname “Bear” and recalled his penchant for wearing a cowboy hat and his hobby of building bicycles that looked like motorcycles.
Boyles, a master electrician, had lived there for about six months, said Juniper Robbins, 23, an Altoona cab driver who was Snyder’s second cousin.
Alvord and Carter were friends with Snyder, and Robbins said Snyder often took in friends in times of need.
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