State College house fire displaces occupants

A Friday fire significantly damaged a State College home, leaving its occupants displaced.

Centre Region Council of Governments Fire Director Steve Bair said no one was injured in the home at 500 E. Hamilton Ave. The fire, which was ruled an accident, started in the chimney.

“Fortunately, they were awake and alerted by a smoke detector,” Bair said. “They were able to take appropriate actions and evacuate the house. Unfortunately, the fire was in the walls of the home and probably had a head start.”

Firefighters were called to the scene at 1:43 a.m., according to Bair. The home is salvageable, but Bair could not put a timetable on how long it would take to repair structural, fire, smoke and water damage.

“The most significant damage is structural to the core of the house,” he said. “There’s not much water damage, and there’s smoke damage throughout the structure.”

Bair called the near 5,800-square-foot house, built in 1933, a beautiful structure that had an architecture design that may have allowed the fire to get a head start before anyone knew about it. The people living in the home had wood burning in the fireplace at the time of the fire.

“It was built in a time where there were a lot of open voids in the walls, and it was probably burning in the walls before being discovered, which is actually really common for these types of homes,” he said. “The heavy plaster walls hold in heat, so you wouldn’t necessarily know a fire started.”

It took about an hour to put out the fire, according to Bair.

“It was an awful lot of work to open break through the plaster walls,” Bair said.

Alpha and Boalsburg fire companies, Centre LifeLink EMS and State College Police Department responded to the fire.

This story was originally published February 13, 2016 at 10:32 AM with the headline "State College house fire displaces occupants."