Heather Weiand hadn't even started to unpack the items that had been moved into the house she had just rented Monday when she smelled smoke. "I didn't see flames," she said shortly before midnight as she sat in her car across the street from 243 Third St. in Hanover, what was to have been her new home. Meanwhile firefighters from five area fire companies squirted hot spots and crawled through broken windows to ensure the blaze was out. "It was all smoke," said Weiand, who said she grabbed her son and daughter and bolted from the house. No one was injured.
Hanover Fire Commissioner James Roth said the house was a total loss, and the fire appeared to have started in the kitchen or an adjacent back porch. Flames were pushing out the side of the house and back door when firefighters arrived and black smoke was billowing out the front door. The fire remains under investigation and a state police fire marshal would check the scene, Roth said. Firefighters were able to put the fire out quickly, but were not able to use their aerial ladder trucks to reach the second floor because of overhead wires. Instead, they used portable ladders to reach the porch roof and upstairs windows. The fire first was reported to York County Control at 11:10 p.m., though firefighters at Hanover's Wirt Park Station had already responded thanks to a neighbor - Ronald Scheetz - pulling a Gamewell call box in front of nearby St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church. "I had just come home when I saw . . . the back door was in flames," Scheetz said. "There was another guy on the phone and a woman on the phone hollering. I could hardly see her through the smoke." That woman was Weiand, who said she had just moved from Biglerville with her kids and fiancé. They still have use of their old house until Wednesday, and after that, they'd seek help from family and friends, she said. The Greater Hanover Chapter of the American Red Cross was also on scene to provide assistance.
Story from:http://www.eveningsun.com/localnews/ci_14781290
Additional Photos: http://www.911-photography.com/York-County-Pennsylvania/Hanover/243-Third-Street/11670186_vE98h#823221741_N6F5q