By KRISTIE LINDEN
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A mother and her three children used their fire escape ladder to escape a house fire in the 400 block of Park Avenue in Monongahela that broke out around 4 a.m. Wednesday.
Monongahela fire Chief Aaron Leezer said the ladder enabled the family to get away from the heat and into fresh air, and it also helped firefighters learn where they were so they could be rescued from the roof of the house.
They were taken to the hospital, but are uninjured according to a family member who started a GoFundMe for the mother and kids.
Afton Rosenwald started the fundraiser for his sister, who he didn’t name, and said she and her children are OK but some of the family’s pets did not survive. One pet was saved.
“Not much is left,” Rosenwald said. “With it being so close to Christmas, I just simply ask for any donation or help possible.”
By early evening Wednesday, $740 had been raise of the $1,000 goal.
The family’s next-door neighbor, Kae Rothacher, said the mother called her that morning to say they were desperately trying to get out of the house.
“We immediately came out and tried to help before really anybody was here. There was another guy that was already outside, and he went to get a ladder to help them (off the roof), and that’s pretty much what really helped,” Rothacher told our newspartner WTAE.
Park Avenue was closed for some time and school buses for Ringgold School District were unable to get to students there. Parents were advised to get their children to Main Street or Van Voorhis to catch the bus.
The road was reopened to traffic sometime around 6:30 a.m. and Monongahela Fire Department asked people to go through the area slowly as fire apparatus was still in the area.
The fire started in the kitchen, but the state fire marshal is investigating the cause.
To donate to the GoFundMe, visit https://gofund.me/e07fdc24.