"I have no clothes, no nothing." - Colleen Mummert After She Lost Her Home

Light rain fell through dense smoke Saturday afternoon while Colleen Mummert stood outside her home and clutched a few important belongings.

A short time earlier, her life took a shocking change.

"I was in the shower," Mummert said of spending an ordinary afternoon in her home on the second floor at Valley View Apartments, 604 W. Schuylkill Rd. in North Coventry Township.

Mummert said she and her children heard a fire alarm sound but assumed it was triggered by light, harmless smoke in the building.

"It goes off when people are cooking sometimes," she said.

Once they realized the building was on fire, they bolted outside.

"We had to get out," Mummert said. The family took their dog with them and firefighters later saved their pet cat, she said. 

"My son is running around without shoes on," Mummert said of Nathan, 21. Mummert's daughter Amanda, 14, also escaped the fire.

Firefighters asked Mummert to describe the location of important items in her apartment. According to her instruction, they retrieved her car keys, eyeglasses, prescription medication and some sentimental items from her charred, smoldering apartment.

"They got my grandmother's engagement ring," she said and fought back tears. Other personal items were beyond saving, she said. "I have no clothes, no nothing." 

Mummert's neighbor Patty DiLeo said she was enjoying the day when she realized trouble was nearby.

"I saw the smoke from the pool," she said. "I came running up and then I saw flames."

Later that day, North Coventry Township Police Chief Robert Schurr said the fire was believed to have started accidentally on the second floor of the three-story apartment building.

The blaze was dispatched at 1:14 p.m., Norco's fire chief arrived at 1:15 p.m. and the first truck, from Norco, was on the scene at 1:18 p.m., he said.

The fire would ultimately reach five alarms.

Schurr said 15 fire companies and roughly 150 firefighters, most of them volunteers, battled the blaze. 

No one was injured in the fire, but a pet cat was killed, he said.

Schurr said 31 residents, including two children, are displaced from the fire.

The building appeared to be "a total loss," with damage estimated at $1.5 million to the structure and $500,000 in contents, he said. 

Animals rescued by firefighters included a dog, a ferret and a turtle, Schurr said.

The investigation into the fire continued Monday and was conducted by the North Coventry fire marshal with assistance from state police and Chester County fire marshal offices.

In addition to helping victims of the W. Schuykill Road fire, the American Red Cross of Southeastern Pennsylvania is working with two people who experienced a fire in the 300 block of N. Franklin Street in Pottstown, officials for the organization said via e-mail on Monday.

To help

Contact the American Red Cross of Southeastern Pennsylvania, 2221 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103, 215-299-0137.