A cause has yet to be found for the apartment fire at 218 W. Market St. in the city Saturday but officials have a good idea where it started.
"It appears that it started in the first floor hallway. Once it got going, it spread quickly up the stairs," Pottsville fire Chief Todd March said Tuesday.
He said he was "fairly confident" that is where the fire started. March said he, state police Trooper Michael Yeity from the Reading barracks and Pottsville police Patrolman Joseph Murton Jr. came to that decision.
Yeity said Tuesday the fire is still under investigation. There are people to interview, he said.
March would not say where in the hallway the fire might have started, nor would he say how they came to that conclusion other than by experience.
"We haven't ruled anything out," he said.
The fire in the 6-unit apartment building displaced multiple families and killed a dog, two birds and possibly one or two cats.
The Schuylkill County Communications Center received a call at 5:24 a.m. Saturday about the fire with possible entrapment.
No one was found in the building after the fire department searched it twice.
Firefighters were met with heavy fire coming from the front door and smoke throughout the building. The fire reached all three floors.
Several people escaped through windows and at least one person was injured after jumping from a window in the building.
Jamie Ebert, a tenant, was taken to Geisinger Medical Center, Danville, after jumping from a second floor window to escape the fire. He was listed in fair condition Tuesday, a nursing supervisor said.
March said the first floor had the most fire damage. The second and third floor sustained moderate fire and smoke damage, he said.
"I think the people on the third floor might be able to salvage some things," he said.
Today an insurance adjuster, March and Mike Ghannoum, owner of the property, will be on scene, March said.
March said he does not know when a determination will be made on the cause of the fire. A damage estimate was not available. "It's fixable, but there's a lot of damage," March said, adding the building was OK structurally.
The smoke alarms in the building saved lives, he said.
Each hallway had interconnected electrical smoke alarms which alerted residents to the fire. Residents also had some alarms in their rooms.
"Thank God nobody died," Ghannoum said Tuesday.
He said he would be at the building Wednesday. Ghannoum did not want to comment on what he thought caused the fire.
"I'm waiting for everybody to finish their investigation," he said.
Ghannoum had the lower windows boarded up and no trespassing signs put on the property recently.
"I'm very upset," he said of the fire.
Of the tenants at the building, some are trying to find new apartments and some are staying with family, Ghannoum said.
Kyle Collins, who lived in the apartment building, was trying to remove the ash from a box owned by Juanika Lick, 57, who also lived in the building.
On Sunday, Ghannoum had the plywood from the front door removed and retrieved items for tenants.