NEW CASTLE, Pa. -- Nearly every month for the past year and a half, residents have awakened to the red glare of flames and the explosions of shattering glass from an arson fire.
Often, arsonists have set several vacant houses on fire within a few days of each other -- in some cases, within a few minutes of each other, leaving the entire city on edge.
Nearly all of those fires were set in the Lower East Side, a neighborhood about six blocks square where many houses sit empty and grassy vacant lots are common. There, after several more arsons last weekend, some residents said they now fear the arsonists will start targeting occupied homes.
"I just hope and pray there's a stop to it," said Robert Pettiford, who lives in a rented home across the street from the charred ruins of a frame house at 616 S. Ray St. that was set on fire at about 4 a.m. last Sunday.
"I haven't been able to sleep since this happened -- they could come do the same to us."
A few suspects were questioned last winter in connection with earlier arsons in the Lawrence County city, but no one has been arrested. Fire and police officials believe that more than one person is involved because several fires were set almost simultaneously.
The arsons began in January 2008 with a fire at 500 E. Main St., an address that was set ablaze twice more in March and April 2008. Since the fires began, 35 of them have been ruled arsons. Investigators believe another 10 were deliberately set but haven't made a final ruling. So far, every arson has occurred in a vacant house. In every case, neighboring homes have been occupied.
With each arson, the city's firefighters must respond as they would if the vacant building were occupied, potentially risking their lives, Fire Chief Thomas Maciarello said. Neither residents nor firefighters have been hurt, but city officials worry it's only a matter of time.
"We've been running through raindrops so far," Chief Maciarello said. "My men have been lucky, but with the intensity of the fires and the structural damage, it wouldn't take much for a floor to collapse or a wall to come down."
Officials from the fire and police departments and the mayor's office met last week to discuss how to stop the arsons. They established a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the arsonist or arsonists, and set up a hot line at 724-656-3067 for anonymous tips.
They also scheduled a meeting this week for residents who would like to create neighborhood watch groups in their area. It will be held at the I Care House at 602 Court St. at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday.
At last week's meeting, New Castle officials also discussed tearing down more of the city's vacant buildings, although they must go through a months-long process of notifying owners of the properties before demolition can begin. That process often is made more complicated because many owners live out of town or can't be reached for other reasons.
The city, a distressed community in Act 47 status, has enough money to demolish 10 more houses, at an average cost of $4,000 per house. State officials have pledged an additional $150,000 to demolish nearly 40 more abandoned homes, according to Mayor Anthony G. Mastrangelo.
"Whenever I get extra money -- so to speak -- we're going to clean up the place," Mr. Mastrangelo said.
City officials could not specify how many homes are vacant, and how many need to be demolished.
One of the obstacles to cleaning up New Castle, Mr. Mastrangelo said, is the problem of absentee landlords who own an increasing number of houses in the city. Many of those houses aren't maintained properly and are rented to drug dealers and prostitutes. Others are simply left vacant for months or years, drawing arsonists.
The house at 616 S. Ray St. had been vacant for three years, according to longtime neighbors. Next door lives a 93-year-old woman who is an invalid, uses oxygen and can't be moved easily. Behind it live David and Kathleen Mumford, who awoke to a fire at 4 a.m. Sunday.
By the time he got his wife and dog out of the house, Mr. Mumford said, the property next door was engulfed in flames. He called the fire department, which responded quickly, but heat from the blaze still shattered his windows and melted Venetian blinds hanging inside.
The city is doing its best to combat the problem, but it's broke, said Mr. Mumford, who was born in New Castle 64 years ago and has lived there all his life. When he was a boy, he said, the Lower East Side was such a safe neighborhood that no one locked their doors. Not anymore.
"It really went downhill," said Mr. Mumford, who noticed his community's disintegration picking up speed about 10 years ago. "There's no work in New Castle, no money with the mills gone."
The old habits of a tightly knit community remain, though. Neighbors still watch out for each other. They know who lives where -- and usually, what they are doing and whether they should be doing it.
Tammie Baker pays even closer attention to her neighborhood since the vacant house next to her at 306 S. Crawford Ave. burned down early Sunday, just after the fire on Ray Street. She has replaced the batteries in her smoke detectors and is watching the streets until late at night.
"I'm keeping an eye open on anybody going past the house, watching anybody going up the alley and driving by," she said on the front porch of her tidy, white-frame home, while a group of tough-looking men roared by in an orange muscle car, tires squealing as it turned the corner.
"I'm keeping an eye on everything going on in the neighborhood."
Like many of her neighbors, she worries that arsonists will start burning down occupied homes. She, too, hopes they either will be caught or decide to stop.
"Please stop -- people have families and kids," said Ms. Baker, who is the mother of children ages 15, 10 and 5. "How about going back to school or looking for work? This is tearing up the environment and it's tearing up the neighborhood and it's scaring little children."
