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Bullet from burning house strikes assistant fire chief
Photo
Neil Heller, an assistant chief of the Warren Fire Department, holds the bullet that he found on the street outside a house on Fourth Street Southwest on Tuesday morning. He found the bullet just after feeling a sharp stinging in his thigh. Heller was not injured.
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Firefighting is known as a dangerous line of work. From roof and floor collapses to wrenched shoulders and backs, the possibilities of injury are endless.
But for Neil Heller, an assistant Warren fire chief, Tuesday morning presented a new danger: bullets.
Heller and a crew of Warren firefighters were at 797 Fourth St., SW putting out a fire in an abandoned house when Heller felt a sharp sting in his thigh.
Heller, who was standing in the street in front of the house, didn’t know what caused it until later, when he looked down and saw a bullet on the street where he was standing.
Heller had been hit in the thigh by a bullet that had fired out of the house as it was burning, said Ken Nussle, Warren fire chief. No gun was found, so the bullet apparently fired as it was consumed by the fire, Nussle said.
“It stung, but it didn’t hurt,” Heller said.
Firefighters working on the front porch heard a “pop, pop, pop” noise, Nussle said. They were apparently hearing other bullets going off, which means those firefighters were probably in greater danger than Heller, Nussle said.
The fire was reported at 7:15 a.m., Nussle said, and firefighters put it out. No one was inside, and no injuries were reported.
Nussle said the Cape Cod-style home was in really bad shape before the fire. Only two walls of the basement were intact, and the fire only worsened the condition.
The city contacted a private demolition company to bring down the structure on an emergency basis, and it was due to come down sometime later Tuesday morning, Nussle said.
The house had no electrical service, so the fire was most likely set intentionally, the chief said.
“Unless there is a witness, these are very hard to solve,” Nussle said of the arson.
At the fire station later, the incident produced some light moments.
Nussle paraphrased a line he’s heard from firefighters in other situations: “It’s not the fires that kill you. It’s the bullets.”