Ross, West View Volunteer Firefighter Faces Arson Charges for Damage to Wife's Home

A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for Nov. 9 for West View and Ross volunteer firefighter Ronald Towers, who is accused of setting fire to his estranged wife's West View home early Thursday.   

Towers, 41, told Allegheny County Police he turned on a straight iron in a room on the second floor of the two-story house at 89 Georgetown Ave., then set papers around and in the iron, according to the criminal complaint filed in . 

He left and walked 20 minutes to his home at 901 Forest Ave., where he waited to respond with the volunteer fire companies when the fire alarm rang, he told police. 

Towers is a volunteer fire firefighter for and the . Towers responded Thursday with the Quaill Department, where he has been a firefighter for about three years, according to Chief Brad McLean. 

A firefighter with the West View Fire Company, which also responded, suffered minor injuries fighting the blaze. He did not require medical attention, McLean said.

Lori Towers was visiting friends in Mercer County when the fire was reported, at about 1:30 a.m. Thursday. 

Her two dogs, Nugget, a Miniature Schnaupin, and Pokey, a mixed breed, were later found unharmed and locked in the basement. Her cat, Bugs, was found frightened but unharmed in the first-floor kitchen. 

Towers and his wife, Lori, had been separated for about a month, and he had made threats in the past about setting the house on fire in a way that would go undetected and harm both her and her pets, accordng to the complaint.

"He would say things all the time," Lori Towers said Friday as she walked through the damaged home. "You think they are empty threats. Would you ever go through with it?"

According to the complaint, Towers said he drank a beer at on Center Avenue before walking to his wife's home and setting the blaze. 

Lori Towers said he was in charge of paying the homeowners' insurance on the house and had let it lapse shortly before the fire. 

She said she purchased the three-bedroom, one-bath brick house from her grandmother in 1994. Her grandparents built the house in 1950, she said, and it is a house she has treasured. 

All of the second-floor of the home, which contained the only bathroom and the three bedrooms, was destroyed in the fire. The first floor sustained substantial fire and water damage.

"I just don't understand how someone can be that cruel,"  she said.

Ronald Towers faces two felony charges of arson—one for endangering property and one for endangering persons— as well as a third felony charge for burglary and a misdemeanor charge of criminal mischief. 

He was released Friday from the Allegheny County Jail on a $50,000 bond while he awaits his hearing. He is not permitted in the borough or to have contact with his wife.