Sandi Cox, of Evans City, stands in front of the townhouse unit she owns in Zelienople on Tuesday, Jan. 23. Cox said that firewalls in the building contained the fire to one unit with the adjacent units sustaining minor smoke and water damage. Cary Shaffer/Butler Eagle

Cary Shaffer

ZELIENOPLE — The fire that destroyed two townhouses in the Timberbrook residential development Jan. 19 would have been much worse had the late Kenneth C. Brennan not taken fire protection so seriously when building the units in the early 1990s.

His daughter, Sandi Cox of Evans City, said on Tuesday that Brennan installed firewalls between each unit that went from the ground floor to the roof.

“The fire department said he went above and beyond,” said Cox, who owns six multifamily buildings in Timberbrook. “They said that is what saved lives.”

She said she feels for the man and his young children who were displaced, as they had just moved in back in December and still had boxes in the garage.

“They walked out with the clothes they were wearing,” she said.

The man and his young children are now living in an apartment in Butler on a month-to-month basis, Cox is relieved to report.

The first townhouse in the building will be repaired, and the two damaged townhouses will be demolished and rebuilt, Cox said.

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