Warren police help woman and children escape from fire

WARREN — City police helped lead a mother and four children to safety from a house on Logan Avenue Northeast that police believe was intentionally set on fire about 1 a.m. today.

The woman said she was on the telephone when she smelled gasoline in the house, so she went downstairs and saw flames on the front porch and smelled something burning.

She woke up two of her children from the living room floor and called 911. Two other children were sleeping upstairs above the porch and door that were burning, she said. The children are ages 6, 7, 15 and 18.

The police and fire department dispatched officers and firefighters, with Lt. John Yuricek and Patrolman Richard Kovach reaching the house first.

Yuricek stood at the front door yelling for everyone to get out, while Kovach entered the rear door and led everyone out “as the fire department arrived and extinguished the fire on the front porch,” according to Kovach’s police report.

An accelerant appeared to have been used, and the fire department assigned investigators to the case, the report said.