Firefighters battle blaze at old distillery in Connellsville Township
Ed Riedmann
A blaze at the former Old Overholt Distillery in Connellsville Township kept firefighters busy Monday evening.
Rachel Basinger | Herald-Standard
Firefighters battle a blaze at the former Old Overholt Distillery off Broadford Road in Connellsville Township, Monday evening.
Rachel Basinger | Herald-Standard
Firefighters take a break from battling a blaze at the former Old Overholt Distillery off Broadford Road in Connellsville Township, Monday evening.
More than 60 firefighters from nine different volunteer fire companies spent more than three hours knocking down a fire in Connellsville Township at the former Old Overholt Distillery, Monday night.
Connellsville Township Volunteer Fire Department Assistant Chief Rob Leiberger said the call came in about 6:55 p.m. The building is located off Broadford Road.
“A property owner adjacent to this property was burning and left their fire unattended, and embers from that fire caused all of this,” he said. “This particular building was already collapsed, but these old buildings where they made the whiskey are framed in 100-year-old dried lumber that soaked in the alcohol over that time, and it will burn extremely hot.”
Leiberger added that the fire will more than likely burn for days.
“Between the landowner and us, we’ll keep an eye on it and we’ll probably have to come back and put some more water on it at some point,” he said.
The firefighters could not walk among the debris to try and put the fire out because there is a basement under the debris, making it very unstable.
Leiberger decided that they would bring in tankers of water to fight the fire because of nearby working train tracks.
“If this was a a standing building, we probably would’ve laid a (water) line (from a hydrant), but we decided to tanker water in so we didn’t have to disrupt the trains going through,” he said.
The distillery property is currently owned by Terry “Tuffy” Shallenberger Jr.
Leiberger said the sad part about the fire was that it could’ve been prevented.
“We keep putting these red flags out there for people, and it’s just so important that they understand that it’s still really, really dry right now,” he said. “Nothing has greened up yet so everyone county-wide really just needs to be careful and watch their burning.”
Departments who assisted Connellsville Township at the scene included: Everson, Flatwoods, Dunbar, Morrell, South Connellsville, Normalville, East Huntington Township and Bullskin Township.