A vacant house in Penn Hills was a casualty of the weekend’s at-home fireworks displays, the municipality’s fire marshal said Wednesday.
“There was debris from fireworks all over the place,” said Chuck Miller, the municipality’s fire marshal. “Big bottle rockets, mortars that go up in the sky and explode – you name it, it was there.”
Thankfully, he said, no one lived in the house located at 590 Grove Road. He said the fire was so bad that flames roared out of every window, and the entire front of the brick building collapsed as firefighters worked to get it under control.
“It could have been real bad,” he said.
Miller said it’s hard to know where the fireworks that started the fire came from. Charges have not been filed against anyone. Grove Road is a residential street in Penn Hills’ Nadine neighborhood.
Pennsylvania law allows residents to set off aerial fireworks. But it is still illegal to light them within 150 feet of any structure. They are also not allowed to be lit in parks or other public property.
“There are no places in Penn Hills that meet that (150-feet) requirement. So it could have been fireworks being set off from a street over,” Miller said.
The homeowner, Carol Short, could not be reached for comment. According to real estate records, she bought the house for $19,500 in November 2017.
Miller said there were up to four brush fires that firefighters responded to on July 4.
Chatter on social media ramped up during the weekend, with several people complaining about the noise occurring through late hours. However, several Facebook users praised neighbors’ displays and efforts to stop setting them off at a reasonable time.
Police Chief Howard Burton said the department fielded approximately 30 calls from people complaining about the noise from fireworks. He said that number is normal for this time of year.
“There was nothing outlandish, which is good,” Burton said.
Despite the calls, police did not cite anyone, Burton said. He said citing someone for setting off fireworks is difficult because usually the people lighting them are finished or gone by the time law enforcement arrives.
Diane Fitzhenry, the municipality’s EMS supervisor, said her staff did not respond to any injuries or calls related to the Fourth of July.
One Penn Hills resident, Daniel Leech, posted drone footage on Facebook of the municipality’s Independence Day celebration from above. The drone footage caught several firework explosions in the municipality’s sky.
