Investigators: 2 Springfield Twp. fires in 5 hours suspicious

Two fires that happened at the same house within hours are being treated as suspicious by investigators.

Springfield Twp. firefighters were called to the scene of a house fire in the 1200 block of Titus Road at about 8:30 p.m. Monday and were on scene for about four hours, according to Battalion Chief Tony Davis.

WATCH: SCENE: Fire rekindles on Titus Road

“The structure was a total loss on our original response,” Davis said. “Crews could not enter the house.”

But about five hours later, he said firefighters received a report of another house fire at the same address.

“Both fires are now ruled suspicious,” he said. “The state fire marshal has been called in to do an investigation.”

A situation where a fire rekindles isn’t uncommon, he said, but investigators aren’t convinced that’s what happened.

“There’s just a lot of factors here that aren’t adding up and so we’ll investigate it,” he said.

However it’s not yet being treated as arson, he said.

“When we say suspicious that means there are factors that are showing that leads us to believe that it was more than just an accident,” Davis said. “And we just want to rule that out.”

No one was injured in the fire.

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Titus Road resident Marty Dooley was driving home Monday night when she saw flames from the first fire.

“I thought it was my house,” Dooley said.

Thankfully, she said, it wasn’t her home. But she was shocked it was at her neighbor’s house and at the size of the fire.

“It was just fire coming out,” she said. “I said, ‘Oh my God!’”

Then she said she called 9-1-1 to report the fire when the home re-ignited early Tuesday morning.

“It was going up in flames,” she said.

Dooley said no one is currently living at the home. She said she spoke to its owners.

“Oh, God,” she said. “They were devastated.”

Clark County’s animal cruelty investigator responded to the scene to check on animals that were outside the home.

“We did have some animals that were on the scene that were exposed to smoke on the exterior,” Davis said.

The animals were checked out and found to be OK, he said.

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