Pocono News Section

Happy Day Turns Tragic for Smithfield Twp. Family

Happy Day Turns Tragic for Smithfield Twp. Family - Tuesday, October 21, 2008 at 4:36PM EST

Reported by: Laurie Monteforte
Tuesday, Oct 21, 2008 @ 04:36pm EST
SMITHFIELD TOWNSHIP - Fire leaves a family of five homeless in the Poconos. Flames took over a house on Remington Road in Smithfield Township at about 11:30 Tuesday.

The fire ruined the home and a very special day for the family.

It was supposed to be a special day for Robyn Coscia. The Delaware Water Gap was going to honor her as Citizen of the Year. Instead it was a tragic day. Her house caught fire.

Robyn held back tears as she said, "That house is all we have. That's it. Our whole life is in there. That's it."

Her husband, Tony, was at the home in Smithfield Village when the fire started. He said, "I started the wood stove for the first time this year. I got it going good. The smoke was going up."

Then he went upstairs to get a soda. Just a few minutes later, all six smoke alarms in his house started to scream. Tony ran downstairs and saw flames shooting from the day bed next to the wood stove.

Tony said, "I grabbed a blanket and I started hitting it and the more I hit it the bigger it got."

The flames got too big for Tony and his blanket so he grabbed the two family dogs and ran outside.

"I got the garden hose. I tried to go in four or five times," he recalled.

Eventually firefighters got the flames under control but the home is destroyed.

"All the kid's pictures. I had scrapbooks going, getting ready to do winter projects. So it's tough to see that kind of stuff.," said Robyn.

The family hopes other people can learn a lesson from their tragedy.

"Keep your smoke detectors in the house and do what I do, change the batteries every New Year's Eve," said Tony.

The Coscia family believes without those smoke detectors Tony may not have realized the house was on fire until it was too late.

He said, "We got the two dogs out, the kids are in school. That's what really matters."

The Coscia's have three children ages 25, 25 and 12. They were not home when the fire started. The Red Cross will help the family find a temporary place to live.