Suspicious Fire Damaged Multiple Homes

“My daughter stood up and she’s like, ‘Mom the house is on fire,’ and I said ‘nu uh’. And I stepped back and looked and I said, ‘Oh my god the house is on fire call 911’ and my friend and I stepped across the street and said ya it’s engulfed,” says Linda Berttragger, neighbor.

By the time neighbors realized 1522 Ridge Avenue was on fire, the vacant house was already destroyed.

Fire Chief Dave Lacy says that leads investigators to believe the blaze was intentionally set.

“This is not a secluded neighborhood by any means, you know there were a lot of people in the neighborhood at the time the units were here and you know that adds to the suspicion that something had to occur very rapidly to cause the damage to the fact that it collapsed,” he says.

The fire burned so quickly it spread to two neighboring homes as firefighters arrived on scene.

As the flames spread from the vacant home, nobody realized next-door there was a 13-year-old girl inside, but one good samaritan ran into check even as power lines fell at his feet.

“She went to the door and she said there was one guy or two guys, something like that, she said that came and told her to get out of the house and then they all helped grab the animals, the two dogs and cat because my daughter won’t leave without them,” says Erika Daniels, whose daughter was home when it caught fire.

Linda Berttragger saw the man dodging power lines to run up to Erika Daniel’s home, but was shocked to find out it was her own son, 23-year-old Luke Berttagger.

“After the fire department come and was putting out the houses my son was standing over there and said ‘I was the one running in’ and I said ‘no you were not’, he goes ‘Ya a power line almost got me in the head’, and I was like oh, no, no, no,” Berttragger says.

Daniels is thankful someone was there to help her daughter when she wasn’t home.

“I really appreciate whoever it was and anyone that is a good samaritan. I would love to thank the person that did it,” she says.

Berttragger is just glad her son could help their neighbor.

“It makes you feel good that you raise a person well enough that they would think more of other people than himself to be brave enough to do something like that,” says Berttragger.

The Zanesville Fire Department is investigating the fire and should have a cause within a few days.

In all seven homes suffered damage.