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Fire destroys New Kensington home after woman tries to thaw pipes with blow torch

A fire destroyed a home in Westmoreland County on Thursday.

It wasn't the first time that Debra Howard's neighbor had tried desperately to battle the cold, but the decision to use a torch to thaw frozen pipes Thursday sparked a blaze that destroyed the woman's home on Arnold Street in New Kensington.

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"We think we're careful when we do stuff, you know what I mean? It was a bad accident,” Howard said.

The homeowner escaped safely and is now staying with family, but it took firefighters from New Kensington, Arnold and Lower Burrell an hour to get the fire under control in the freezing cold.

Sheets of ice still cover cars and parts of Howard's home, signs of just how brutal it was to battle the blaze.

"I give them a lot of credit. They do their job and do it well to come out in these conditions,” Howard said.

Howard went on to tell us that her neighbor has suffered a lot in the last year and folks who live nearby are trying to help her out by searching for a missing little black dog that was in the house during the fire.