'Suspicious' fire guts rental house in borough

Aug. 26--A Thursday afternoon fire at 149 Park St. is considered suspicious by authorities, who added that talk going around town that it was a methamphetamine lab is unfounded.

"It's just a rumor," Cpl. Mike Allias of Grove City police said at the scene on Thursday. "There was no meth lab."

Allias said the rumor is due to a man who had allegedly operated a meth lab from his trunk while living temporarily at the residence. However, Louis Alton Irwin III was arrested in May by state police and is in jail on charges for the alleged car operation -- as well as a home meth operation in Polk.

The fire at the Park Street house began in the living room, Trooper Luke Nelson, a state police fire marshal, said at the scene. "It's still under investigation, but it's suspicious," he said. "The fire damage in the living room is not easily explained."

Firefighters were dispatched around 1:50 p.m., Allias said, adding that a number of area firefighters fought the blaze for about an hour.

A man who lived across the street saw the fire and called 911, then banged on the front door to make sure no one was inside, according to neighbors.

No one was in the house, which is a rental owned by Bevan Properties, a Grove City real estate company, Allias said. A woman and several children moved into the house around November of last year, neighbors said.

A number of people stood by and watched firefighters put down the inferno. Many more drove or walked by afterward to see the damage.

The investigation was expected to take another day or two because Nelson said he still needed to contact the insurance adjustor "and the investigators they have, and do more interviews with the people who were last over."

The residents of the rental had not yet been interviewed, he noted.

The fire "is a total loss from and insurance standpoint," Nelson said. "The owner's insurance for the structure would (give) less than the cost to rebuild it."

The last house fire in the borough was on Dale Street last year, Allias said.

Published Aug. 15, 2015, in Allied News. Pick up a copy at 201 A Erie St., Grove City.

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