VIDEO: The wind kicked up Sunday evening sending firefighters scrambling to get out of a burning Beaver County home.
“It wasn’t two to three minutes in, and the wind conditions picked up and drove this fire like a blowtorch,” said Rochester Fire Chief Mike Mamone III.
Beaver County dispatchers say firefighters were called to the 400 block of East Washington Avenue in Rochester at 5:20 p.m. Smoke could be seen billowing above the community from across the Ohio River. Mamone said the conditions weren’t even safe for the firefighters as the smoke thickened and you couldn’t even see the homes.
“The problem is smoke is unburned fuel, and if there is enough smoke and temperatures and gases, it can light off and cause us more problems. At one point when these buildings were burning, you could feel the radiating heat very far into the street,” Mamone said.