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Fire tears through Ferry home

|Photo by Derek Redd| Firefighters douse a house fire Friday afternoon on the 800 block of Pearl Street in Martins Ferry.

MARTINS FERRY — Firefighters from Martins Ferry, Colerain and Bridgeport spent late Friday afternoon trying to knock down a house fire that gutted one home on the 800 block of Pearl Street and damaged the two on either side of it.

According to Martins Ferry Fire Chief II Justin Smith, when crews arrived, the fire had engulfed the back of the home. There were initial reports of people being trapped inside, he said, but when firefighters investigated, they found the home was unoccupied. They did evacuate residents next door.

Firefighters initially tried entering the house, Smith said, but soon realized they wouldn’t make enough progress through the door, so Smith pulled them back and switched to a defensive strategy. No firefighters were injured.

The roof of the house had collapsed and the back of the house was mostly burned through. There was a small fire that had started on one adjacent house that was put out and siding damage from the fire’s heat on the house to the other side.

The cause of the fire was not yet known late Friday.

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