CONNELLSVILLE, Pa. (AP) -- Federal agents were investigating whether two fires set in this gritty coal town over the weekend were linked to a spate of suspicious blazes between October and February.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has launched probes into a fire that burned an apartment building and left six families homeless and another that burned a building containing a hair salon.
Authorities have not determined whether the fires were the work of a serial arsonist.
``There are certainly some consistencies (between this weekend's fires and the earlier seven), but there are some inconsistencies, too,'' Supervisory Agent Jim Tanda of the ATF office in Pittsburgh said Monday.
Authorities declined to reveal details of the investigation. But residents of this depressed coal center about 35 miles southeast of Pittsburgh fear an arsonist may be behind the blazes.
``If you go and rob somebody or burglarize them, at least you get something out of it _ money. But what does somebody get out of this?'' said Tony Pujia, whose self-named hair salon was burned Sunday.
Ben Sherman lives in an apartment house next door to the building that was set ablaze early Saturday. He said he's taken in some of the estimated 30 residents left homeless and he and other residents are on a nervous lookout for the culprit.
``We walk around all night long,'' Sherman said, adding that residents are ``real spooked.''
A state police fire marshal called in the ATF after a fire Monday morning left a family of six homeless, said Mike Ghrist, assistant chief of the South Connellsville fire department.
Officials haven't figured out exactly how that fire started but haven't ruled out the possibility that it's related to the others, Ghrist said.
