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Hazelwood fire kills 77-year-old woman Newphew suspects smoking habit Monday, June 12, 2000 By Ernie Hoffman, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Alex Biro said his aunt was a strong-willed woman who smoked despite warnings that she should not, and he said he believes that led to the fire that took her life yesterday.
Veda Michalik's body was found on the first floor of Biro's house at 5014 Chaplain Way, Hazelwood, after an intense, pre-dawn fire gutted the vinyl-clad frame structure. The Allegheny County coroner's office said Michalik, 77, died from smoke inhalation.
"It appears she was smoking while she had her oxygen on," Biro said.
He told a reporter he tried to go to his aunt's aid but was forced to jump from a second-floor window by the fierce flames.
After firefighters left the scene, Biro and his next-door neighbor, John Ostwald, said Michalik insisted on smoking cigarettes even though she suffered from a respiratory ailment and needed to use oxygen.
He said she had lived in the neighborhood years ago and he had known her since he was 5 years old.
Biro, 50, said his aunt had been in and out of hospitals and nursing homes in recent years and she had come to live with him in January. The first-floor living room was converted into a room where Michalik watched television and slept.
"He took her in out of the goodness of his heart," Ostwald said.
Michalik was supposed to go outside to smoke, Biro said, but he believed she awoke early yesterday and lit a cigarette while the oxygen mask was still on her face.
Biro was asleep upstairs when he was awakened by a smoke detector. He heard his aunt's call for help, he said, but he could not go to her because the stairwell was a pit of flames.
Biro said he jumped from a window into the empty lot next door, grabbed a garden hose and yelled for help.
Ostwald said he was awakened when a neighbor, Bill Williams, pounded on his front door. He looked out and saw fire jetting from the first-floor window in Biro's house.
"It was like someone turned on a gas tank," Ostwald said. "It was shooting out the window like a torch."
Ostwald said he, his wife, Roseanne, and their 8-year-old son, Michael, quickly left their home. They had to climb over a front-yard fence because a burning electrical line had fallen and was blocking the gate.
City Deputy Fire Chief Robert Hirosky would not comment on a possible cause, pending an investigation, and said he did not know whether Michalik's smoking habits were relevant.
Michalik's body was on the floor, Hirosky said.
"She had apparently attempted to make her way toward the front door and she was found in the rubble," he said.
Biro, the only other occupant, sustained minor abrasions when he jumped, Hirosky said.
Firefighters received the alarm at 5:05 a.m. and when they arrived the house was engulfed in flames, he said. The fire was under control before 6 o'clock.
The fact that the fire did not spread to Ostwald's home, about six feet away, was a testament to the firefighters' work, Hirosky said. Damage to Biro's house was estimated at $40,000.
It was the second time within 11 years that a fatal fire had struck the neighborhood. Two members of a family died when flames destroyed the house, which stood on the now-empty lot adjacent to the Biro house.
The Sept. 22, 1989, fire at 5012 Chaplain Way took the lives of tenants Robert Paternoster, 59, and one of his sons, Scott, 16. His wife, Patricia, 55, and another son, Robert, 23, escaped with minor injuries.
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