Firefighters put out another suspicious fire

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

City firefighters were called to a house fire about 12:10 p.m. Saturday on the East Side.

The fire destroyed a three-story home in the 300 block of Forest Avenue that had been vacant for some time. The cause likely was arson, fire officials said. No injuries were reported. A Forest Avenue resident who lives nearby but didn’t want her name used said this was the third suspicious fire on the street in about a month. Two other vacant homes across the street from Saturday’s fire also burned, she said.

The city has seen a spate of recent suspicious fires, including five within a two-hour span in the early morning of Aug. 15 on the West Side, in which four vacant houses and a storage shed to a Mahoning Avenue business burned.

In mid-July, firefighters were called to a fire said to have been intentionally set at a vacant South Side business in the 2500 block of Market Street. Damage was listed at $10,000, though no injuries resulted.