Fire Severely Damages House In Mount Washington

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PITTSBURGH (KDKA) --- A woman heard a loud explosion and thought a bomb had gone off near her Mount Washington home. Then, she realized her home was on fire.

Crews were called to the home near the corner of Haberman Avenue and Eureka Street around 4:30 a.m.

Jean Myers said she initially thought someone was trying to break into her home.

"I heard something rattling, some sort of a metal sound and I thought someone was trying to break in or I thought my boyfriend was trying to go downstairs," said Myers, "so I got up to see what was going on and then I smelled like an electrical smell and I saw sort of a white haze."

It wasn't a burglar, but the start of a fire at the home she's lived in for nearly 40 years.

"And I opened my bedroom door and with that I heard a huge explosion," Myers told KDKA, "and then I ran to my office, which is the back of my house, looked out on to the deck area and it was engulfed in flames and a second explosion."

She described the smell as putrid, "like an electrical smell and I screamed to my boyfriend help, help, there's been an explosion."

Myers and her boyfriend made it out of the home safely. She said she was surprised just how quickly her home filled with smoke and flames.

Everything that I've worked for all my life, but we're alive, thank God," Jean Myers said. "When I saw it from the deck, it just went up like it was a napalm bomb. It was just so gigantic."

Myers was able to save her phone, wallet, purse and computer.

The home suffered extensive damage and Myers says she'll probably stay at a hotel for the next few days.

The Red Cross has also been called to assist.