Nov. 21--WEST PITTSTON -- It was the work of an arsonist that gutted a historic 128-year-old home of a local attorney Sunday night, a state police fire marshal said Tuesday.
Joe Castellino, an attorney with a practice in Pittston, learned of the ruling Tuesday while at his three-story Exeter Avenue home sorting through what little could be salvaged after the devastating blaze.
The fire was set near a porch enclosed with lattice, said Trooper Ron Jarocha, a state police fire marshal.
"I just found out. I'm trying to digest it," said Castellino, 70, who lived in the home with his wife, JoAnn. "I had a feeling. They kept asking me 'Are you sure there were no accelerants out there?' -- because they found proof that is was accelerants that burned it. I had none out there."
Investigators will now attempt to determine who set the blaze to the home that was built in 1884 and was a destination for tours of historic borough homes that were organized by the West Pittston Historical Society.
"I don't have the kind of practice that's very adversarial. I'm not a headline seeker," Castellino said, downplaying speculation that the fire could have been set in retribution for his work.
Castellino said he and his wife just finished dinner when she noticed flames on the porch.
"She started screaming. 'Joe, come here! Joe!' I jumped up, ran back and there was a fire. I looked and the flames were already 4, 5, 6 feet high," Castellino said. "I have a fire extinguisher in every room in my house. I grabbed one right near the kitchen door, opened the door and then there's a storm door and that was melting. I pushed it open with my foot and was blasting the fire at its base like you're supposed to.
"And it just kept coming at me. It blew me back. I got singed -- my hair, my forehead, my hands," Castellino said. "I dropped the fire extinguisher, slammed the door, and said, 'Let's get out of here.'"
West Pittston Assistant Fire Chief Gary Slusser, 41, who lives next door, was just getting home from the fire house when he spotted an orange glow on his neighbor's porch around 7:30 p.m. He radioed Luzerne County 911 to dispatch fire crews, alerted his family to evacuate and rushed back to the fire house to respond to the blaze.
Slusser and other crews arrived on scene less than 90 seconds later to see flames shooting toward the roof of Castellino's home. The fire had also jumped to his home, burning the area around his daughter's bedroom.
"It was pretty hellacious," Slusser said Tuesday.
Fire crews prevented the fire from fully engulfing Slusser's home, but there was little that could be done for Castellino's home. Castellino said he stood in a neighbor's yard, watching the flames race across the top floor and then through the lower floors in what he called a "top down" burn. A portion of the roof collapsed during the fire fight.
"I was across the street, just in shock," Castellino said.
Slusser called the arsonist's actions "brazen."
Slusser's wife, Sheri, said she was home with the couple's two daughters, 10 and 7, when the blaze was set.
"We were sitting in our house while someone was lighting a fire. That's scary," she said.
Castellino said he lost lots of possessions after the flood of 2011 hammered the borough. His basement was inundated and oriental rugs were ruined by a few inches of water that covered the first floor.
The home was able to survive the flood, but not this, Castellino said Tuesday.
"It's going to be demolished," Castellino said.
570-821-2055, @cvbobkal
Copyright 2012 - The Citizens' Voice, Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
