Oct 6, 2003 By Steve Ferris 3 min read

Mary Lee McClelland of Fairchance knows what its like to lose everything in a fire. She and her family escaped an apartment blaze 13 years ago with only the clothes on their backs. She relived that helpless feeling on Sept. 14 as she watched a building near her new home burn, while comforting a blind 6-year-old girl who was rescued from the inferno.

The fire that killed 76-year-old William Earnest Mason of Point Marion has been ruled arson and the father of the 6-year-old has been arrested for starting it.

Mary Lee, her husband Dennis and their 14-year-old son, Andrew, are paper carriers for the Herald-Standard and live in an apartment a few doors away from the West Church Street building that was destroyed in the blaze.

The family had awakened at approximately 4:25 a.m. and was getting ready to start delivering Sunday’s paper when Dennis McClelland said he smelled smoke.

Andrew McClelland went into the street, saw the fire and yelled for his mother to call 911. Mary Lee McClelland said they went to the apartment door, but the heat and smoke prevented them from entering.

Dennis McClelland said he looked around for a ladder to reach the second floor, but couldn’t find one. Andrew McClelland wanted to try to get into the building, but his mother wouldn’t let him.

Nobody inside seemed to hear them yelling so they stopped a passing truck and got the driver to blow his horn.

Rick Saluga was first to emerge from the burning building, Mary Lee McClelland said. He screamed that his babies were still inside and went back to get them. She said he carried his four children out two at a time.

A few days later, state police arrested Saluga on charges of homicide and arson.

Mary Lee McClelland said she was holding Saluga’s blind little girl for a couple hours while firefighters battled the blaze and rescued Saluga’s mother-in-law and her two adult mentally challenged children from their third-floor attic apartment.

She said the girl was confused. “She was calling me nan. She thought I was her nan.”

A Fairchance native, Mary Lee McClelland and her family moved back about a year ago after living away from Fayette County for the previous 17 years. She said they escaped an apartment fire in Minnersville, near Reading, when her son was only one year old.

“We’ve been through a fire. We know what its like to lose everything,” she said. “You don’t understand it until you go through it.’

Mary Lee McClelland said she knows just about everybody on her 200-paper route in Fairchance, and knew the Salugas had children, but didn’t realize they had four.

She was glad that none of the children were injured.

She said Fairchance is tightly-knit community, and many still can’t get over the fire.