Jan. 29--A suspicious fire destroyed the barn at the old Ironton slaughterhouse in North Whitehall, the township fire marshal said. No one was injured.
The blaze broke out about 1:20 a.m. in the two-story wood-frame barn at 4767 Cobbler Road and took about three hours to put out, Fire Marshal Donald Jacobs said.
"It took the whole barn down," he said. "There was nothing but a couple of timbers left."
The idle slaughterhouse next to the barn was not damaged, he said. The concrete building served as the movie set for two recent independent horror films, "Malevolence" and "Bereavement."
Owned by the Allen George family, the property has not had electricity since the 1980s. The barn had old hay in it, but there was no obvious ignition source, Jacobs said.
"The hay burned. We're trying to figure out why," he said. "We're kicking through some different theories. So far we haven't found anything that's irrefutable. So we're calling it suspicious for now."
To aid the investigation, North Whitehall brought in Bill Brett, the state police fire marshal from Dublin barracks, and an Allentown police dog trained to detect such fire starters as gasoline and lighter fluid.
The fire lit up the night sky, Jacobs said.
"You could see it from quite a ways away," he said. "About 10 minutes out, I could see a glow. About 4 miles away, with all the lights on the smoke and condensation, it looked like a small cooling tower at a nuclear power plant."
North Whitehall firefighters had help from Neff's, Laurys Station, Schnecksville, Tri-Clover, Whitehall and South Whitehall fire companies. Northern Valley Ambulance and Macungie Ambulance also were on the scene.
-- Frank Warner
Copyright 2013 - The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.)
