Firefighters Barred from Entry During Fatal Hoarding Fire

LANSDOWNE, Pa. – The body of a 66-year-old man was pulled from a condemned building in Lansdowne on Wednesday after a fire gutted it, authorities said.

Firefighters took Elmer Glenn Burnette Jr. from his 70 E. Stewart Ave. home after crews were able to get the fire under control. He was found sitting in a chair in the front section of the home on the first floor.

“The building’s marked as a no-entry building because it’s a hoarder’s house,” said Lansdowne Fire Chief Tom Young. “There was a lot of fire in the living room area and, then, at that time, we didn’t know he was there. And then they did a search and found the body.”

Borough Police Chief Daniel Kortan confirmed the building wasn’t supposed to be lived in.

Young said the house also had no running water, electricity or utilities of any kind.

“Our codes department had condemned the house back in April,” Kortan said. “It was posted as unfit for human habitation.”

Because the building was condemned, responders had to fight the fire cautiously.

“We’re not going to enter a building when it’s going to be more hazardous to our firefighters to enter a house like that,” said Young. “The guys did a great job knocking the fire down a fast as they did and gaining access to where (Burnette) was.”

Responding fire companies included Lansdowne, East Lansdowne, Yeadon, Clifton Heights and Sharon Hill.

The fire started around 12:30 p.m. Firefighters responded to the scene three to five minutes after a call was placed to emergency services.

“By the time I came down, you could hear, ‘Pop! Pop! Pop!’ All the glass (from the windows breaking),” said Kass Moors, who lives nearby.

“The front windows are where the flames started to come out,” said neighbor Michael Marcavage. “That’s when I saw (the firefighters) busting the windows. When they were busting the windows, the flames started to pour out.”

Both Young and Kortan described Burnette as a hoarder. Because of the hoarding, firefighters had to go through the building to check for hotspots among the clutter.

“He had everything wrapped around his chair: Trash and things like that,” said Young. “We actually had to move all that away to make sure there’s no fire smoldering underneath there.”

Firefighters on the front porch used coal shovels to move debris away. They cleared remaining broken glass out of the front windows and handed out trash and debris from inside the house.

Burnette’s front porch had red, white and blue bunting on it and an American flag hung from one of the railings. It is believed that Burnette was a veteran of the Vietnam War.

A firefighter removed the flag from the porch and placed it on the back of a Landsowne tanker truck. A short time later, he returned with a veteran’s baseball cap recovered from the house and hung it from the top of the flag.

“It’s really a sad situation,” said Marcavage, who identified Burnette as a veteran.

Moors said Burnette worked at the nearby Giant Food Store and was a “real hard worker.”

“He always sat on the porch,” said Lansdowne resident Bob Rossiter. “He had no bad words for anybody. It was always, ‘Hello.’”

Some neighbors reported that Burnette may have lived at the home with his brother, but no officials at the scene could confirm that.

One firefighter suffered a laceration to his hand while fighting the fire and was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.

District 7 Fire Marshal Rufus Stokes said the investigation into the fire will take some time because there are other investigations pending.

He added that the investigation will depend on what the Delaware County Medical Examiner’s office finds in its investigation.

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