A vacant house located at 175 West Third Street in Mansfield caught fire and belched smoke that obscured the evening sky in downtown Mansfield Tuesday night. The Mansfield Fire Department arrived on scene at 8:53 p.m., and within an hour had the fire contained, though not completely extinguished.
According to Mansfield Chief Steve Strickling, there was no one in the building at the time of the fire. At approximately 9:45 p.m., fire crews were preparing to enter the structure to take out ceilings and properly ventilate the building.
“We’re primarily in a defensive operation at this point,” Chief Strickling said while speaking to media representatives.
Neighbors and onlookers were gathered in small groups watching fire crews as they worked. Todd and Trisha Hout, residents of nearby 191 West Third Street didn’t notice the fire until they heard the first sirens. “The smoke was all blowing the other way [to the east], so we didn’t know it was on fire.”
The house, a former funeral home, had a reputation in the neighborhood as drug house and was frequently broken into, according to Sondra Rowalt. “I guess there were people that go in there and do the crack thing, and do drugs,” she said.
Updated 11:25 a.m. Wednesday
Harlan Barrick, the Mansfield Fire Department’s investigator, said the structure is not safe and the fire was a set fire, a human act. Barrick said the fire started in the rear of the house on the first floor. He noted that this was the tenth fire at the site in the last four years.
“Now we have to determine, was it an accidental human act or an intentional. Falling asleep on the couch with a cigarette, that is a human act fire but that’s an accidental fire. If you dump gasoline on the floor, that’s an intentional. We’ve eliminated all the accidental causes,” stated Barrick.
He added, “We’re going back up to dig out. I can tell you it was an intentionally set fire, but I can’t tell you exactly until we dig it out. There appeared to be a couple living stages in there that appear to be recently occupied, a furniture set up, food, doughnuts and pop that had not been there very long. It appears somebody could have been living there. I can’t completely rule out that somebody did something while they were staying there.”
