Fire Marshal Investigates Cause Of Blaze That Destroyed Collector's Moon Twp. Home
MOON (KDKA) – Investigators are trying to determine what started a fire that badly damaged a home in Moon Township Monday morning.
It started out as a normal morning at Mel Karaica's home on Fern Hollow Road. He and his wife were having breakfast when the smoke detectors started going off.
"I said, 'Oh! Don't worry about it, that's from my fire place,'" said Karaica. "I looked over her shoulder and I said, 'Oh my God! Look at the smoke!' You couldn't see your hand in front of you."
Out of nowhere, a man ran inside. Steven Saterlee was at the convenience store nearby and saw smoke coming from the home.
"I went over and pounded on the door and kind of opened the door," says Saterlee. "It was open because they were trying to air it out. I went inside. I could tell the house was on fire. There was smoke coming from the upstairs."
Saterlee told the couple they needed to get out of the house, but they wouldn't budge. The family has lived there for 50 years.
"People are just reluctant to think that anything bad could happen, so I think that's what happened," says Saterlee.
"They dragged me out," says Karaica. "I didn't want to leave."
What emergency crews found at the scene made their jobs even more difficult. In addition to flames and smoke billowing from an upstairs bedroom, there was stuff everywhere.
"The gentleman that lives here collects a lot of stuff, so there was a lot of his collections inside the house," says Douglas Busch, Assistant Chief of the Moon Township Volunteer Fire Department. "Made it kind of difficult for the firemen to gain access to where the fire was."
"I'm surprised that it didn't go up a little bit faster," says Saterlee. "There's definitely a lot of easy debris in the house for it to catch fire and stuff, so I'm glad nobody was injured."
Karaica hopes nothing too valuable burned in the fire. He sells things from his collections at a flea market in Ohio.
"The good stuff is in the garage," says Karaica. "I have a porch full of stuff, the whole garage is full."
The family has no plans to rebuild.
"The property is worth a lot of money," says Karaica. "[A] real estate company wants to buy it, and they want to put a four-story apartment building here."
While the fire marshal is working to determine an exact cause of the fire, Karaica has his own suspicions.
"I had [a] disc player on the bed. I played it every night for the past five, six years. That could have started it," he said.
Despite what he lost, Karaica is thankful that everyone is safe. He also wants to thank the firefighters for their hard work.
"[They] did a hell of a job. That house is 125 years old! And look, it's still standing," he said.
It took four fire departments to get the fire under control. Moon Township's Volunteer Fire Department was assisted by departments from Sewickley, Crescent Township and Imperial.
The Red Cross is now helping the Karaica family until they can find a permanent place to live.
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