ARONA, Pa.,None — Firefighters battled flames at a former church in Westmoreland County late Saturday night and into Sunday morning.
Firefighters worked in cold temperatures as they tried to extinguish the fire at the former Church of the Nazarene building on Main Street in Arona around 11 p.m.
Scott Tavsek owns the former church and said he planned on turning the building into a garage.
Tavsek was the first person to notice the flames and tried to fight the fire himself.
“I started to put a hose on it,” Tavsek said. “I tried to put it out in the back because it was burning back by the wood burner. I took a hose to it until the fire companies got here and then those guys took over.”
No injuries were reported in the blaze.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
Saturday's blaze was the second time in three years that fire destroyed a building Pavsek owned in Arona.
The house he and his wife lived in was destroyed by fire on Jan. 28, 2009. That fire was caused by an electrical problem.
"We lost everything in our house," Pavsek said about the January 2009 fire. "I'm sick of fires."
WPXI
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