A Plum resident and a volunteer firefighter suffered minor injuries in a fire that damaged a home in Plum’s Greendale Village neighborhood Saturday.
The fire at the two-story home at 1442 Greendale Drive, off Old Leechburg Road, came in at 6:45 p.m., an Allegheny County 911 dispatcher said.
A firefighter was checked by paramedics because of the heat, while a man who lives at the home was taken to a hospital by ambulance to be checked because of burns and heat, said Glenn Kopec Sr., a safety officer with the Unity Volunteer Fire Department.
A woman who also lives in the house was not hurt, Kopec said.
Kopec did not know what department the injured firefighter was with. Eight volunteer departments from Plum, Penn Hills and Monroeville responded.
The fire began on the back porch and spread to the house, Kopec said. Firefighters had the fire under control in 15 to 20 minutes, he said, but not before it did heavy damage to the house, rendering it unlivable.
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While Kopec said the Allegheny County Fire Marshal will investigate the cause of the fire, next-door neighbor Larry Wood said the fire that heavily damaged the home spread from a grill on the back porch.
Wood said he first knew something was wrong when he heard his neighbor’s wife scream.
Wood said he went over with a fire blanket, designed to smother a stove fire while protecting a person, and tossed it up to his neighbor.
“The first thing that came to mind was to do that,” he said.
But the grill was larger than the stoves the blanket is designed for, and there was no way to get the grill off the porch because there are no steps to it, Wood said.
Flames came from underneath the grill, and Wood said he heard a bang, which was when his neighbors went inside and called 911. Police arrived first and tried to combat the blaze with extinguishers, but it spread to the awning of the deck and up the side of the house.
Kopec said firefighters encountered no other issues in fighting the fire.
