A house fire early Wednesday morning on the south side of Fort Wayne took the Fort Wayne Fire Department almost two hours to get under control. Because of the damage, the two people living there now have to find a new place to call home.
The FWFD said after the fire was finally put out, the house at 3223 Broadway was way too much of a hazard to leave standing. Fortunately, the two people living there were gone when it all happened.
"I just cannot believe my house is in a pile of rubble right now," said Churyl Pawinski, who has lived there for just over a year. "This is not reality to me, I just don't understand how this could happen."
Fire fighters heard about the fire at 1:54 a.m. and were on the scene five minutes later. But unlike most house fires, this one took them an hour and 47 minutes to get under control.
Bob Amber of the FWFD said they would have used one of their ladder trucks to attack the fire from better angles, but couldn't because of trees and power lines. "We've got beautiful old trees and power lines going right down the sidewalk, and those are safety factors that we can't really negotiate around with a ladder truck," he said.
"I don't know what I'm going to do," said Rick Amburgy, who has lived in the house for three years. "I lost everything...except for what I have on."
"I can't wait 'til they find out how this happened, so I can have some closure," added Pawinski.
As for the cause of the fire, it's still under investigation. But because the house was pretty much gutted out and had to be torn down, the FWFD said it's going to be a matter of interviewing residents and witnesses.
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