Cranberry Twp. log cabin blaze a challenge for responders
Conditions were stacked against firefighters at the scene Saturday night in Cranberry Township when a log cabin that was heated by oil topped with a metal roof caught fire in a wooded area on Goehring Road.
Michael Hanks, division chief of Cranberry Township Volunteer Fire Company, said the cabin was ablaze when police and then firefighters arrived on the scene shortly after 11:30 p.m.
The circumstances of the cabin and the fire made it immediately difficult to even fight, Hanks said, and firefighters took a defensive approach to contain it.
“When I pulled on scene, the amount of fire was absolutely incredible,” Hanks said. “With the amount of fire, there was a lot of water used to fight it, and we had quite a few obstacles with it being a collapsing structure.”
According to Hanks, no one was in the cabin during the fire, and Cranberry Township police contacted its owner, who was out of state. Additionally, no firefighters were severely injured in the fight, in part because the fire was too intense for responders to get close to.
Hanks also said the state police fire marshal will investigate the cause of the fire, so no cause has been determined yet.
First responders cleared the scene at around 3:30 a.m. Sunday, and police monitored the wreckage the rest of the night. Hanks said firefighters returned Sunday morning to extinguish remains of the cabin that had sparked some flame.
The cabin was a single-family home that had a basement, and it is considered a total loss after the fire. Hanks said oil used to heat the cabin kept the fire continually burning for a long time, and the metal roof made it even more difficult to put out.
“Due to the collapse and it having a metal roof, it slid in and made it hard to have suppression,” Hanks said. “That metal roof made it hard to get in and hit the fire, we had to do a lot of strategic moves.”
Hanks said people continued to report the fire to 911 because they could see if from “miles away.”
Harmony Fire District, Adams Area Fire District, Callery VFC, Evans City Volunteer Fire Department, Big Knob VFD, Marshall Township VFD, Wexford VFC, Cranberry EMS and Cranberry Township police also responded to the scene, and Berkeley Hills Fire Company was Cranberry Township VFC’s station fill-in during the fire.
Hanks commended the responders for their work in fighting the fire, because they reacted well to a difficult situation.
“The response time was so minimal to have departments on scene,” Hanks said. “It's pretty hard to get that fire out when it's fuel-fed.”
