A house fire in Dauphin County displaces four adults and one child

Laxman Adhikari was in his bedroom on the second floor of his Middletown home on the 600 block of Few Avenue, trying to fall asleep around 11 p.m. Thursday, when he heard an unusual “boom” sound from beneath his room.

“At first I thought someone had broken into the house,” he said. “But I walked into my brother’s room because I thought he was doing something.”

After Adhikari went to his little brother’s room, they both realized that they heard the same sound, prompting them to go downstairs to find out where it came from.

The brothers told PennLive that they decided to check the garage because the noise was under Adhikari’s bedroom, which is above the garage.

After opening the garage door, they were slammed with heavy black smoke.

“Laxman went upstairs to get everyone out, but I was able to get out through the front door before it got worse,” said Krishna Adhikari. “I stood outside the house and shouted: get out, get out.”

Laxman ran upstairs to get his mother, father and four-year-old brother before the fire broke out. He said they were able to leave the house through their back deck, which had stairs leading to the home’s backyard.

Laxman said they could not exit through the front door as the first floor was shrouded in heavy black smoke.

Two minutes after the family escaped, they noticed the fire spreading throughout the house. Laxman said he called 911 at 11:18 p.m. and firefighters arrived on the scene five minutes later.

Adhikari believes they could have been trapped if they had not connected a deck to their second floor.

“Everyone was barefoot, it was crazy,” he said. “And it was so cold outside, but our neighbor helped with blankets, clothes and water. My mother was worried about the fire and the baby.”

A total of four adults and one child were displaced and the Red Cross has been working with the family. Adhikari said they received support from their other family members.

The family said they were preparing to celebrate a Nepali holiday called Dashain.

Dashain or Bada’dashain, also called Vijaya Dashami in Sanskrit, is a major Hindu religious festival in Nepal and the Indian states of Sikkim, West Bengal, Assam, South India and Sri Lanka.

It usually falls in September or October (depending on the lunar Bikram Sambat calendar) and lasts 15 days, according to the Discovery World Trekking website.

The holiday fell on Friday, October 11 in Nepal. But it is celebrated the next day in the United States due to the time zone difference.

Adhikari said relatives normally gathered at their homes during the holidays. Despite the circumstances, they plan to still celebrate the holiday, but he told PennLive it won’t be the same. The family started a GoFundMe to raise money for anything left in the fire.

“This is like having your house burned down on Christmas Eve,” he said. “It’s so tragic.”

The family said there were no cars in the garage when the fire broke out. But there were two electric bicycles on the left side of the garage. However, the family does not believe the bicycles caused the fire because, according to Adhikari, the fire started near the wall of the garage on the right.

Middletown Borough Fire Marshal Patrick McKenna said the electric bikes were not connected to the fire because the bikes were not plugged in. He said the cause of the fire is unknown and still under investigation.

He said the house was declared uninhabitable and crews have not yet found any evidence to determine whether the fire was intentional.

No other homes were affected by the fire. Only one firefighter suffered a minor injury, McKenna said.

Firefighters left the scene around 3 a.m., McKenna said. The emergency services had the fire under control around 12:30 p.m

Several surrounding departments also responded, including Middletown, Lower Swatara Township, Highspire, Steelton, Progress, Londonderry Township and the Harrisburg International Airport Fire Department.