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Explosion rocks Girard
Girard House Explosion
Gallery
A House on the Corner of Townsend and Washington Streets in Girard Exploded Thursday, July 18, 2008 around 6:30 p.m. Photographers James Hughes and Steve Meyers contributed to this slide show.
Girard Explosion
Video
GIRARD — A house on the corner of Townsend and Washington streets exploded around 6 p.m. Thursday, leveling it, setting another home ablaze and causing damage to several nearby houses.
Andy Waller, who lives a mere two lots away, said he was knocked off the couch by the blast.
More concerned than fazed by the boom, he immediately ran into a house next to the one that exploded just minutes before flames engulfed the neighboring home.
Waller and another man helped two elderly women escape from what would become a six-hour inferno.
There was no smoke yet, no fire, but I sensed it coming,” Waller said.
Come it did. At least four engines were on the scene; smoke could be smelled from North Youngstown.
Kitty Diamond, who lives in the neighborhood, heard the blast at her job a mile away on Kline Street.
Girard police officers felt the station rumble nearly eight blocks away. The Girard Fire Department arrived at the home, 820 Washington Ave., and removed the two women and a boy. Neighbors said, however, that the women’s two dogs perished.
The two women rescued were taken by ambulance to St. Elizabeth Health Center, along with two children, Waller said.
Fire crews could not extinguish the flames before the house burned to the ground.