NESCOPECK, Pa. — Neighbors are having trouble sleeping at night. The big, burly fire chief can’t talk about it without his voice breaking. An 8-year-old can’t comprehend why a fellow member of the Berwick Youth Football League won’t ever play again.
At a local roadhouse bar, known for downing beers and shots and partying hard, they’re pouring out their hearts with fundraisers and donations for all the funerals to come.
This is the way a small town gets through a big tragedy: Any way they can. But all together.
In the wake of Friday’s fatal house fire that claimed 10 lives — all of them relatives and three of them children — it’s been shoulder-to-shoulder support ever since. Sometimes, it’s a shoulder to cry on. Other times, one to lean on.
“It seems like the whole community has come together. I have never seen such comradery,” said Jessica Parker, owner of the Unicorn Restaurant in the center of Nescopeck, population 1,476.
“The outpouring of support is amazing,” she added. “It’s heartbreaking. A whole family. I can’t even imagine what they’re feeling.”
No here one can. Not even the fire chief.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Nescopeck Volunteer Fire Company Chief Harry Knorr said. “It’s the worse tragedy I have seen in all my years in the fire service.”
He’s served since age 14. He’s 47 now.
In a community this small, the losses hit close to home.
One of the dead was 19-year-old Nescopeck firefighter Dale Baker. Riding on the engine that responded, along with the fire chief, was his father, Harold Baker.
At first, the responding firefighter who lost a son, daughter, father-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, three grandchildren and two other relatives to the blaze didn’t realize this was the house where his kids were living. The first dispatch, which came in around 2:30 a.m. Friday, listed the address of a neighbor who made the 911 call.
“The dispatch wasn’t the address of the fire,” Chief Knorr said. “When we pulled down the street, there it was. He knew his son was there.”
The chief’s wife, Heidi Knorr, who serves as the department’s secretary and is a fellow firefighter, said she helped support Harold Baker at the tragic scene.
“No one had an idea who was involved,” she said. “Once we found out, we removed Harold from the scene. We did our best. I came in right after them and helped.”
Now, everyone is helping. Even big-brother Berwick, the much-larger Columbia County borough located just across the Susquehanna River from Nescopeck.
That’s where Bandit’s Roadhouse held a well-attended fundraiser on Sunday to benefit fire victims. Co-owner Chris Issler said the event raised at least $1,000 and counting for the families — and the many funerals to come.
“Our phone has been ringing off the hook, asking, ‘How can I make a donation?’” he said. “That’s a measure of our town’s commitment. There’s no way you can be positive about something like this. But trying to help is something. What can you say to a family who has lost so much?”
So far, the hardest part for Issler has been having to explain to his 8-year-old son, Luke, why a fellow member of the town’s youth football league will never again take to the field.
“There’s a little boy who isn’t going to be playing football anymore. That was shocking for him; it was confusing for him,” Issler said of his son. “I can’t blame. How do you compute that in your head? He has a lot of questions.”
It’s not just the children who are having difficulty.
Next-door neighbor Cindy Kemper says she can’t seem to get a good night’s sleep since the fire. On the night of the blaze, it was a bathroom call that got her out of bed around 2:30 a.m. But it was a loud popping sound, followed by a jolting bang, that frightened her into thinking someone was trying to break in.
Then came the firetrucks.
Kemper peeked out a window and saw smoke. But it wasn’t until she dressed and walked out to the street where other neighbors were gathering that she comprehended the full scale of the fire.
“It was all involved. The whole front porch was all an inferno. They couldn’t get in. There was no way. I know they tried,” Kemper said of firefighters and their futile rescue efforts.
No one was prepared for the death toll: 10 souls lost, ranging in age from 5 to 79. The three children were two boys, ages 5 and 6, and a 7-year-old girl. All succumbed to smoke inhalation, according to autopsy results. Only three people in the residence were able to escape the fatal flames, officials said.
“Nobody knew at first how many people were in there,” Kemper said, recalling the chaos at the frantic fire scene.
“I didn’t see anyone come out. I just hoped they got out somehow,” she added. “At first, they thought six people were in there. It ended up being 10. It was horrible. I still have nightmares about it. I have trouble sleeping.”
In the days since, Kemper looks across her backyard at the two-story corner house on First Street that’s now nothing but a heap of charred wood, collapsed down into the foundation.
Play sets that once teemed with activity sit idle in the tree-shaded backyard. Two small pools await splashing kids who’ll never dive in again.
“They just moved in two months ago,” she said of the extended family. “I would see them out back. I would see little kids. They were all out in the yard. When I walk out back and look over there now, it’s very sad.”
All along the orange plastic fence surrounding the structure’s burnt remains, new toys – trucks, cars and stuffed animals — have been laid, along with flowers, already fading under the hot sun. More symbols of a tiny town with a hurting heart.
“It’s devastating. Especially with the children,” said Chris Canouse, daytime bartender at Bandit’s.
One thing you won’t hear — not around the roadhouse bar nor among the lunch crowd at the Unicorn restaurant — is speculation and rumors about how the fierce fire ignited on the porch.
The cause of the fatal blaze remains under a criminal investigation by the State Police Fire Marshall and other law enforcement. The people here are awaiting the facts while they grieve.
“We’re just waiting to hear what happened. It’s a tragedy,” Canouse said.
“The rumor mill — people taking about who it started — that really isn’t much of a conversation piece,” agreed Issler.
Added Parker at the Unicorn: “Until there’s an official report, I don’t want to speculate.”
It will be difficult enough getting through the sad days to come: 10 funerals in this tiny town.
Parker has already agreed to help supply food for the memorial luncheons that will follow the services, still to be arranged.
Chief Knorr knows firefighters from all over will flock to pay tribute to a fallen brother who loved being a firefighter. The chief’s voice breaks just pondering the black-armband days to come and that long, somber procession of shiny fire engines, all draped in black crape.
“He will be honored,” the Chief vowed. This was all he could manage to say about his fallen firefighter who signed up at age 16.
The shock still hasn’t worn off. This Wednesday, the firehall will be the setting for a “critical stress debriefing,” the chief said.
The hardest part for the first responders is knowing nothing could be done.
As a foe, this fire was as fearsome as anyone here has ever seen. Its toll, unbearably high.
“Honestly, I could not believe the amount of fire,” Heidi Knorr said. “There was nothing these gentlemen and ladies could do, other than contain the fire,” she added of her firefighting peers.
Said Knorr: “It’s hard. You just can’t wrap your mind around it. That many people. I’ve never seen anything like this.”
All here pray they’ll never see its like again.
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