Sept. 07--Agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives spent the day Saturday, poking and sifting through the rubble and ruins of three Seventh Street homes.
The agents, along with Falls police and fire investigators, were looking for clues to what sparked a massive fire that destroyed the three homes and left seven families homeless.
By Saturday night, fire and police officials said it was still "too early to call" a cause for the blaze.
Neighbors have insisted that an explosion caused the fire. A neighbor, who lives across the street from the house at 440 Seventh St., where the blaze first erupted, told the Gazette he heard and felt the blast.
"The explosion blew me against the side of the porch after a big boom," he said. "I know it was a huge gas explosion or something."
Roger Miller, who also lives directly across the street from the fire scene, said he too heard a blast.
"I was laying on the couch and heard a big explosion," Miller said. "By the time we got outside, the whole first floor (of 440 Seventh St.) was engulfed (in flames). Debris fell on my house, burned through the living room wall."
Despite those reports, Falls Fire Department Chief Fire Investigator Jerry Aderhold said he didn't want to speculate about the cause until he had an opportunity to get inside the heavily damaged structures.
"I go in cold and see what the fire shows me," he said.
Crews from National Fuel responded to the scene and excavated three separate holes to turn off the flow of natural gas to the entire west side of the 400 block of Seventh Street.
After starting in the home at 440 Seventh Street, the blazing inferno immediately spread to homes at 442 and 438 Seventh St. Despite the fast-moving flames, Fire Chief Tom Colangelo said it appeared that everyone had escaped the carnage.
Colangelo said the first firefighters on the scene were told that people may have been trapped inside the home at 440 Seventh St.
"We had a report that there were people in there," he said. "We sent two (rescue) teams in and they didn't find anything."
The chief said the timing of the fire, just after mid-day, may have meant that few people would have been home and inside the structures. An elderly couple reportedly lived on the third floor of the home were the fire started, but they apparently had gone out shopping before the blaze broke out.
While there were no human fatalities or injuries. Two dogs reportedly did perish in the flames.
Falls Police Superintendent Bryan DalPorto, who arrived at the scene at the height of the fire, said the mostly vacant west side of the block of Seventh Street looked like "Berlin after World War II."
Colangelo said every on-duty firefighter in the city responded to the blaze and nearby volunteer fire companies were called in to stand-by at Falls fire halls. Off-duty firefighters were also brought in to assist.
All three homes are set to be demolished as soon as the federal agents and local fire investigators complete their work.
Copyright 2014 - Niagara Gazette, Niagara Falls, N.Y.
