Demolition crews in Tuscarawas County hauled off debris from a fire scene Thursday after fire crews spent eight hours battling stubborn flames.

The New Philadelphia building on the 400 block of Tuscarawas Avenue was an apartment and a nail salon, according to fire officials. They responded at 4:05 a.m. to reports of a fire in the storage shed attached to the building. Neighbors said it was a scary scene.

"I live on Orchard Avenue, about two blocks down. I heard sirens around 4, 4:30 this morning," said Vikki Whitman.

Roads were blocked as demolition crews cleaned up the debris left from the building. In the building next door, business owner Linda Incarnato said she knew the nail salon owner.
"When I got here this morning, she just ran up to me and cried, said ‘what am I going to do’”? said Incarnato. "I said, ‘It’s going to be OK, Mary. You know you can always come here.'"

Dover and New Philadelphia fire departments responded to the fire. Capt. Jim Sholtz, of the New Philadelphia department, said the blaze was tough to control when it spread to the second story of the building. Then, the roof collapsed and firefighters were called out.

"We ran into a lot of difficulties getting to the second story due to storage and the construction of the building," said Sholtz. "We had to wait for it to more or less burn through the roof before we could actually get our ladder pipes on the fire. Once it burnt through the roof, we were pretty limited to what fire we could actually get out since fire tends to hide in different places that the ladder pipe can't get to."

Incarnato said she collected money for the nail salon owner for what she lost.

The state fire marshal is investigating the fire, and the cause is undetermined, fire officials said.