Woman, pets die in Armstrong County fire

One woman and several pets died in a house fire on Logan Avenue in Leechburg early Tuesday morning.

“We were just sitting in the house and we saw all the fire trucks coming up the road. They turned here in front of the house and we didn’t even know anything was going on over there,” said Matt Knapp, who lives down the street. “Once we’d come onto the porch, you could see all the smoke coming out of the roof.”

Firefighters from four departments arrived after getting the call at 8:46 a.m. and quickly started working.

Randy Ryan, who lives next door, wasn’t home when the fire started, but got home while crews were on scene.

“Smoke was still pouring out, white smoke, and the fire department pretty much had it under control,” he said.

However, firefighters found a woman – now identified as 60-year-old Betty Bail, and several of her pets had died in the fire.

“Betty was a sweet person,” Ryan said. “It’s sad what happened.”

“It’s horrible,” added Joan Baxter, another neighbor. “She kind of kept to herself a lot, but she was friendly. We talked over the back fence all the time.”

The Armstrong County Coroner will perform an autopsy to determine how Bail died.

The state fire marshal was on scene much of the day and was focusing his investigation in the kitchen.

“How sad is this for your neighborhood?” Channel 11′s Andrew Havranek asked Ryan.

“It is. Very,” he said. “My deepest sympathy to the family.”

The state fire marshal is still working to find out how this fire started.

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