A five-structure fire which destroyed three houses and two garages in the 600 block of Avondale Street is being investigated as arson. (Photo by Kristi R. Garabrandt)

EAST LIVERPOOL — Two fires in the city of East Liverpool Sunday afternoon and evening are being ruled arson by the state fire marshal’s office and are under investigation. The state fire marshal is conducting the investigation.

A reward of up to $5,000 is being offered to any individual who can provide information leading to the identification of the person(s) responsible for the fires.

Anyone who has any information is asked to contact the state fire marshal’s office by calling 800-589-2728.

Due to the proximity and timing of the two fires, East Liverpool Fire Chief Antony Cumo suspects it is a possibility they were both started by the same person(s).

Cumo said he wouldn’t say there is a firebug in the city right now, since they don’t have proof yet that the fires were connected, but if any more fires happen then that may be a concern.

When asked if he thought the fires were connected, Cumo said, “we don’t know. I find it suspicious that a few hours apart we had a fire downtown. Multiple houses burning is not uncommon, but to have two fires in the same day a couple of hours, that became a little suspicious.”

He also noted there were some other indicators that he can’t discuss, and the state fire marshal were taking care of those.

Cumo is asking anybody who sees anything or anyone suspicious around the sites of the two fires to contact the state fire marshal at the number listed above. He is also asking if anyone sees anything they think is suspicious anywhere to contact the police department or 9-1-1 immediately.

East Liverpool Fire Department and Liverpool Township Volunteer Fire Department responded to the first fire which happened in the garage attached to the Friendship Gospel Tabernacle located at 219 W. 7th St., at approximately 4:10 p.m.

Cumo said the firefighters did a great job in making sure there was very minimal fire damage to the attached church and that was because the firefighters were thinking ahead and were able to get ahead of the fire to prevent it from spreading to far into the church. He believes that with a little bit of clean up the church should still be usable.

Cumo noted that the garage was not of any use, nobody had been in it for 10 years and nobody was using it, and it’s their assumption that it is suspicious, but doesn’t know if the state marshal has any persons of interest yet.

It was approximately 8:24 p.m. when they got the call for the five-structure fire in the 600 block of Avondale Street. The fire started in the center house located at 636 Avondale and spread to houses on the right and left, 634 and 638 Avondale and two garages.

Cumo said firefighters were able to contain the fire to the three unoccupied houses and two garages and were able to keep it from spreading to the fourth house which is occupied. One of the houses was in the process of being remodeled.

In addition to East Liverpool Fire Department, Liverpool Township and Wellsville volunteer departments provided mutual aid and Calcutta and Glenmoor volunteer fire departments provided water supply with their tanker trucks.

Dispatch reached out to the water department and were able to get them to increase the water supply to the area due to the demand for water.

Cumo noted embers from the fire were blowing around and they were lucky it didn’t spread more, and that they were fortunate it’s not much of a wooded area and they are not fighting brush fires like most of the other departments are.

There were no injuries from either of the fires.

There were issues with the internet at city hall and the internet was down and Cumo along with Safety Service Director Bill Jones said the dispatchers did a great job.

Cumo noted two weeks ago the fire department changed how they did their calls for how they call the second and third alarms for fires. It’s through the internet that the department gets their third alarm pages to call out Liverpool Township VFD. Cumo sent the pages out for the third alarm call.

Jones noted that dispatcher Rylan Childs was making the calls and recording everything by hand while the internet was down during that time and said he considers Childs a great asset to dispatch.

Cumo said it could have been a mess if dispatch hadn’t been on top of it making calls during the outage.

kgabrandt@mojonews.com