Arson makes hazard worse

Staff report

WARREN

A Monday night fire in one of the two Pamela Manor apartment buildings on Tod Avenue Northwest near the former St. Joseph Riverside Hospital made an already hazardous, vacant building worse, Warren Fire Chief Ken Nussle said.

The 7:30 p.m. blaze was arson, but there were no people inside when firefighters arrived, and no injuries resulted from the fire.

Flames were shooting out of the roof when firefighters arrived. They didn’t enter the building but controlled it to keep it from spreading. Most firefighters had left by midnight, but one crew stayed all night.

The two buildings have been vacant since 2001 and have been on the demolition list for many years, but they would be expensive to demolish, Nussle said.

The apartments are dangerous because of how extensively they have been vandalized and stripped, Nussle said.

A third vacant apartment not far away is called the Garden Place apartments. Also not far away are the Stone Gate Place Apartments, which are occupied.

One man who lives near the Pamela Manor apartments said there are vagrants and children inside the apartments on a regular basis, and police regularly chase them away.

“They were nice apartments at one time,” the man said, but they quickly became dangerous after they became vacant.