Smoke spread from the Villa eatery into the adjacent Kim Moon Chinese & Japanese restaurant, 718 Philadelphia St. and upper level apartments at 722 Philadelphia St. above the vacant storefront last occupied by the Europa gift shop.
“Fortunately, this was only 30 seconds from the fire station, so the guys make a really quick hit,” said Ron Moreau, first assistant chief of the Indiana fire department.
Indiana firefighters ran hoses from hydrants at the Seventh and Eighth street intersections and climbed ladders to reach the rooftops to search for any extension of the fire, Moreau said.
“The majority of the heat and damage appeared to be in the kitchen area, said Third Assistant Chief David Smith, the officer in charge of the incident this morning. “The fire was held in check by the sprinkler system. We did have some extension into the roof of the structure which took up the majority of the time because the initial fire was under control in 15 minutes.”
The search for fire under the rubber roofing of the rear extension of the building stymied the crews long after the fire was out in the kitchen. Some were on the scene until about 6 a.m.
Smith said officials were “not 100 percent certain” of how the fire began and referred the investigation to the state police fire marshal office, “just as a precaution being that it is a business.”
Moreau said Villa II would be out of commission for an undetermined time for repair and cleaning. Some residents appeared to have re-occupied their apartments at 722 Philadelphia St. after firefighters controlled the fire.
Smith later said the tenants living above the restaurants also were permitted to return.
Moreau praised the fast response of neighboring companies from Homer City, Clymer, Black Lick, Creekside and Blairsville. Volunteers answered the alarms from the Indiana County 911 center at 12:35 and 12:43 a.m. and teamed up in biting, 23-degree cold to head off the fire.
“We got all of these gentlemen out there tonight because of this,” Moreau said. “We have common basements, common second floors, so whenever you have a downtown fire, you always call for help.”
Tenants of the upper-level apartments all fled safely. Paramedics from Citizens’ Ambulance Service staged from at least two medic units at the scene and said they didn’t have to treat any patients.
Two workers from Indiana Borough Public Works spread rock salt by hand in the vicinity of the fire, wherever water trickled from hose connections and posed a risk of icing on the street.
Indiana County Transit Authority sent an IndiGo bus to serve as a warming station for first responders at the scene.
Well after firefighters pulled ladders back from the buildings, but while officials still searched for possible extension of fire in the ceilings, manpower was drawn down due to an alarm for multiple fire companies on Pizza Barn Road in Derry Township. Blairsville and Black Lick fire departments responded from Indiana along with the Clyde and Tunnelton-Conemaugh Township fire companies when alarms were sounded about 2:45 a.m.
