When Shelly DeHaas arrived at the Bellefonte Academy just after 11 a.m. Wednesday, all she saw was a bit of smoke.
Bellefonte's assistant fire chief had been at home when the emergency tones sounded. She quickly made her way to the Undine fire station on Bishop Street, just a few blocks from the fire.
One of the first firefighters in the building, DeHaas said no one realized how bad it was going to get.
"When we went up to the first and second floors, there was only light smoke," she said. "But then it started to get thicker and blacker."
Firefighters from Bellefonte, Milesburg and Pleasant Gap conducted a room-by-room search of the landmark building, which was converted into apartments in the 1940s.
DeHaas said there were two things running through her mind.
"We've got to find the fire, and we have to get the people out," she recalled. "It was like a broken record, over and over."
Meanwhile, firetrucks arrived outside. Bob Frazier, one of the deputy chiefs for the Bellefonte department, said that Nick McGarvey, a Bellefonte police officer, spotted someone in a second-story window and alerted Fire Chief Tim Knisely, who told Frazier and firefighter Anastasia Winisko.
"We ended up pulling a ladder to the window," Frazier said. "I went up the ladder and coaxed the man down."
DeHaas had been in the building for several minutes, leaving only once to replace her oxygen tank. She and her crew continued breaking down doors and searching for the flames.
"The intensity of the black smoke was coming down on us. It was hot, and it was hard to see," she said. "The heat was intense, but we couldn't find the fire."
Using a heat-imaging camera, DeHaas and her crew finally found the flames raging inside the walls.
"Someone in my crew said 'Shelly, look at this,'" she said. "I looked (at the camera), and you could see the fire just rolling above our heads."
After making sure the man he'd rescued was safe, Frazier went into the building to see where rescue efforts stood. It was about this time that the firefighters were told to evacuate because officials feared a collapse.
All the firefighters reported back to their trucks for a head count of sorts to make sure no one had been left in the building. They'd rescued the three people trapped inside the building. There were few injuries, and no one is believed to have died in the blaze, Knisely said.
After the firefighters were evacuated, there was little to do but watch the fire burn. DeHaas said she and other firefighters were frustrated that they could not do more to battle the blaze.
"When you're inside, you think you can stop it," she said. "It bums you out, not being able to try and save these people's homes."
Firefighters had to move their trucks back several times as the blaze raged through the building. Embers fell from the sky; one touched off another, smaller fire nearby.
"The roof on the house in front of the Academy caught fire. We had to put it out," Frazier said. "We said, 'We can't let this go beyond the Academy.'"
Firefighters from 12 volunteer companies kept the fire from spreading to nearby homes and monitored the blaze within the building. The fire was deemed under control at about 7 p.m., according to Knisely, and most firefighters had left the scene by 11 p.m.
Frazier and DeHaas spent the day and most of the night at the fire scene Wednesday, and both said they were happy with how things turned out.
"I think everyone did a tremendous job," Frazier said. "I'm very proud."
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