Pocono News Section

Man Dies in Hepburn Township Blaze

Man Dies in Hepburn Township Blaze - Friday, March 19, 2010 at 04:05AM EST

Reported by: Jeremy Deebel
Friday March 19 2010
HEPBURN TWP., LYCOMING COUNTY -- A Lycoming County man is dead following a ferocious early morning fire.

It happened at 65-year-old Gerald Brion's home on Florence Drive in Hepburn Township.

It was about 3:30 Friday morning when neighbor Patty Lewis first smelled a burning odor.

By 5:15 she saw a police officer and other people hurrying around at the house across the street.

And then she saw smoke begin to escape from the front of the house.

Lewis explained, "At that point, the whole house just kind of went up and it was just smoke and flames everywhere. I thought that they had gotten everybody out, because I thought that was the owners that were over there at the time."

Firefighters arrived almost immediately, but unfortunately Brion had already perished inside.

Hepburn Township Deputy Fire Chief Ryan Beatty explained, "As I walked around, you could look back through the house and see the fire had extended into the other rooms at the other end. And the fire was ventilating itself through the windows in the rear of the structure."

Firefighters actually had to be evacuated from the house at one point while trying to retrieve the man's body, because the smoke and flames had become so severe.

They managed to re-enter the home about 15 minutes later, and knock down the bulk of the blaze.

Beatty added, "There was structural collapse to the building and to the floors and he was actually in the basement of the structure. That's where he was found."

Fire investigators spent most of the morning and afternoon at the scene looking for the cause of the deadly blaze.

They tell us the fire does not appear suspicious. Firefighters say they did not find any working smoke detectors in Brions home.