Late-Night Fire Damages 90-Year-Old House, Rouses Narberth Neighborhood

Narberth firefighters and residents had a late-night scare about 1 a.m. Friday when a house at Forrest and Woodbine avenues caught fire and authorities briefly thought there might be people trapped inside.

However, the most recent renters of 236 Forrest Ave.—a family with six children—moved out a couple weeks ago, owner John Grauch said at the scene. Several local fire companies quickly extinguished the blaze and no one was reported injured.

Deputy chief Fran Dixon of the said the examination of the scene so far had not pinpointed a cause, though he confirmed that "household items" had been burning on the first floor.

Firefighters raked and sifted through burnt debris on the lawn. The extent of the damage to the structure was unclear.

Grauch and Stan Price, who lives across Woodbine from Grauch's property, both said they saw a flaming basket of clothes inside the first floor of the house, which made them suspicious that the fire might have been set intentionally.

A couple doors down Woodbine, Ellen Trachtenberg awoke to the smell of smoke and heard what she soon discovered was windows breaking in the burning house.

"That's an old house," Trachtenberg said. "My first thought (about the fire) was it was the wiring."

The 1920 Old Colonial-style house is two stories high, contains five bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms, sits on a 7,800-square-foot lot and was assessed at $189,000 in 1998, Montgomery County online property records show.

Grauch said he lived in the home from 1953 to 2008; he now lives a half-mile away at the Thomas Wynne apartments on Wynnewood Avenue in Narberth. Grauch had expected the last renters of 236 Forrest to come by Sunday to pick up some leftover possessions.

"Thank God there was nobody in there," one firefighter said to another after the fire was out. "If they were in there breathing that smoke..."