Neighbor describes explosion and blue light coming from fatal fire in Weathersfield

By Ed Runyan

runyan@vindy.com

WEATHERSFIELD

Authorities have not released the name of the man who died in an 11:30 p.m. house fire Friday at 2868 Tibbetts Wick Road in McKinley Heights.

But next-door neighbor Judy Lather says she heard a loud explosion while watching television, then looked out her picture window and saw an orange flash and then blue light “like a gas explosion” at the house. She said the explosion blew off part of the house.

“When firefighters got there, it was pretty much cinder blocks,” she said.

The house is owned by Andreas Vigorito, whom the neighbor said she called “Andy.” Vigorito has lived there since she moved into her house six years ago, Lather said. She believed he was in his 60s or 70s.

He went to the Rogers flea market on Fridays and usually returned home in the evening, but he came home in the early afternoon Friday, she said.

She described Vigorito as “a nice guy,” adding that he has helped her in the past by watching one or more of her kids while she crossed the road to go to a store.

Weathersfield Township Fire Chief Randall Pugh said the identification of the victim is being handled by the Trumbull County Coroner’s Office, but an investigator there said no identification has been made yet.

Pugh said the roof and second floor of the two-story home had fallen onto the first floor by the time the fire department arrived, and a section of the wall had collapsed.

The Ohio State Fire Marshal’s Office is investigating the cause, but a spokesman said no information on the cause is yet available, nor does the fire marshal’s office have identification of the victim.

Investigators used a backhoe to excavate the site and found the man’s body at 1:33 p.m. Saturday, Pugh said.

Pugh and Ernie Cook, director of Trumbull County 911, explained a delay in getting firefighters to the scene resulting from a “voice-over [internet] protocol” phone system in use by the person who made the first 911 call.

That type of system provides phone calls over a cable television line, but it does not give an “automatic location” to the 911 operator and indicated it was coming from Liberty Township west of Belmont Avenue, Cook said. The call initially was dispatched to the Liberty Township Fire Department, Cook said.

Pugh said his department, which has a station a short distance west of the fire location at Route 422 and Tibbetts Wick Road, was dispatched to the fire at 11:37 p.m. and arrived four minutes later, at 11:41 p.m.

Getting a volunteer fire department to that scene in four minutes was a good response, Pugh said.

Lather said Liberty and Weathersfield firefighters arrived first, followed by several other departments.