A three-alarm fire Sunday rendered a Pennsylvania senior living community uninhabitable, but no deaths resulted.
Eighty-two personal care and memory care residents and five staff members of Heather Glen Senior Living in suburban Allentown, PA, were evacuated, according to officials. Six residents were taken to area hospitals for observation, and two firefighters were injured fighting the blaze; their injuries are thought to be minor, the Fogelsville Volunteer Fire Company reported. Other residents reportedly were taken to family members’ homes or to other senior living communities.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
Firefighters and emergency medical service crews were dispatched to Heather Glen just before 3 a.m. Sunday, according to the Fogelsville Volunteer Fire Company. Staff members, who were evacuating residents with assistance from the Upper Macungie Township Police Department, reported alarms going off and smoke in the building, the fire department said. Neighbors reported a fire at the back of the community.
“The fire appeared to have started on the outside of the building and got into the roof of the structure,” the Fogelsville Volunteer Fire Company said in a Facebook post. “There was no actual fire in the living quarters but heavy smoke to the one end of the structure.”
Fire departments and EMS crews from two counties responded, along with state police and other police, the department said.
Nobody from Heather Glen was available to respond to a request for comment by McKnight’s Senior Living, and updates were not posted on the community’s social media accounts as of Monday afternoon.