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By DIONNE PEEPLES-SALAH; Times Leader Staff Writer
Monday, May 03, 1993 Page: 3A QUICK WORDS: VOLUNTEER FIREMAN
INJURED
SWOYERSVILLE — A volunteer Swoyersville firefighter was injured Saturday
battling an early-morning house fire caused by a lit cigarette left on a
couch.
Robert Koval, second assistant fire chief for the Maltby Fire Department,
was hospitalized at Nesbitt Memorial Hospital after he fell through a
“pull-down door” in the attic and landed on the second floor of the Railroad
Street home in Swoyersville. He was released from the hospital Sunday.
Koval was crawling toward an attic window to let smoke out of the house
when he fell, said Fire Chief George Tomshaw of the Swoyersville Hose Company
No. 1. “There were clothes and boxes and boxes of old magazines in his way. He
didn’t see the trap door,” Tomshaw said.
The fire, which started in the second-floor TV room at about midnight, was
caused by a house sitter’s careless smoking, Tomshaw said. The fire spread no
farther than that room, Tomshaw said.
Betty Nevolas, who owns the home, was out of town and her sister and
brother-in-law were watching the house, fire officials said. Nevolas could not
be reached for comment Sunday.
Frank Hawk, a state-appointed volunteer fire marshal for Swoyersville, said
a cigarette left burning on the couch sparked the blaze.
Although the brother-in-law brought the ashtray he was using into the
kitchen, fire officials said, he left the burning cigarette behind.
“By the way the couch was burned, it was the point of origin,” Tomshaw
said.
The fire department learned of the fire from a woman living in an apartment
in the rear of the house, Tomshaw said.
The woman spent Saturday night with a neighbor and was able to return to
her home Sunday, Tomshaw said.
The TV room sustained moderate fire damage and the rest of the house
sustained heat, smoke and water damage, Tomshaw said.
About 35 firefighters responded to the blaze.
There were clothes and boxes and boxes of old magazines in his way. He
didn’t see the trap door.
George Tomshaw
Swoyersville Hose Co. No. 1 chief