Update: Homeowner Injured In House Fire

of a twin home one Darby Road Tuesday afternoon, leaving the male homeowner with smoke inhalation and thermal burns to the throat, Haverford Township Fire Marshal Jim Marino told the Haverford-Havertown Patch at the scene.

The fire is believed to have started at 3 p.m. in the kitchen of the twin house, located 30 Darby Rd., when the homeowner may have been asleep on the second floor, Marino said. The homeowner did not discover the fire until 3:30 p.m., when a call to 911 went out.

The home is across the street from the When firefighters arrived at the scene, the man was hanging out of the second-floor window when he was rescued, Marino said, adding that the man suffered smoke inhalation and thermal burns to the throat and was sent to the Delaware County Memorial Hospital. His name was not released.

No one else was in the twin house, but the joining home, 28 Darby Rd., was evacuated with no reported injuries. Fire Chief John Viola told Patch that firefighters went into that home to knock down the joining walls between the two houses to get at any trapped fire.

In fact, Marino said that firefighters had to knock down part of the roof and watered down the 30 Darby Rd. house to ensure that fire was not in the walls.

What added fuel to the fire was a lot of clutter within the first floor of the 30 Darby Rd. home, said Viola, who is also the deputy chief of the .

Mike Warrick, of National Restoration, a company that handles repairs to damaged homes, said at the scene the costs of repairing the Darby Road twin house might be up to $250,000. Warrick said he was hoping to speak with the homeowner’s insurance representative so his company could get the contract to repair the twin house. 

Many witnesses watched as firefighters put out the fire and were throwing out burnt pieces of furniture and other damaged items from windows.

“We saw the black smoke coming over the trees,” said 17-year-old eyewitness Samantha Fickling, describing what she saw as she was in a car with a friend driving on eastbound on West Chester Pike.

Fickling said that her friend, who is an EMT with the township, told her about the fire and they decided to go. She said as soon as they got there her friend went to work to treat firefighters who came out of the smoke-filled house. Marino said that all of the firefighters were unharmed. 

Francis Desmond, of Chester, said that he had a friend drive him to see the fire. Desmond, 91, was a firefighter for 76 years with the Moyamensing Hook and Ladder Company. He said that he was a little annoyed that a man of his experience was told to stand on the sidewalk and not on the median on West Chester Pike to watch the firefighters.

The fire prompted police to close West Chester Pike from the  entrance to Township Line Road. The road reopened after 6 p.m.

Brookline, Oakmont, Bon Air, Manoa, Upper Darby and Penn Wynne Overbrook Hills Fire companies were also at the scene with rescue crews, including Narberth Ambulance Co.