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Update 7 p.m.: Ansonia police identified a “person of interest” in connection with a fire that damaged a Marshall Lane home Monday.
In an email, Ansonia Police Lt. Andrew Cota asked for the public’s help in finding Steven Weidler, who is listed on city property records as the home’s owner. Weidler should be driving a white 1999 Mercury Mountaineer with Connecticut license plate 272 TYR, Cota said.
The police department’s phone number is 203 – 735-1885.
Original post follows below.
Ansonia detectives and officials from the state fire marshal’s office were working Monday to figure out how a fire that damaged a Marshall Lane home began.
About 60 firefighters from Ansonia and Derby responded to the blaze, at 3 Marshall Lane, which started about 4 p.m.
A woman who was standing in a group of onlookers across the street as firefighters battled the blaze became upset and was taken by paramedics for an evaluation. There were no other injuries.
Ansonia Police Lt. Andrew Cota said at the scene about 5 p.m. that police were treating the fire as suspicious and had called the state fire marshal for help investigating.
“There’s obvious points of origin for a fire,” Cota said.
Cops were in the process of talking to witnesses, he said.
“We’re trying to get the circumstances of exactly what happened,” he said. “It appears the fire started from inside the house. We’re definitely looking at it as suspicious.”
Ansonia Fire Department Assistant Chief Michael Eheman said crews arrived to find heavy smoke and fire coming from a window toward the back of the home.
Firefighters knocked down the fire in about 20 minutes.
Eheman said it was unclear whether anyone was in the home when the fire began. The home was empty when fire crews arrived there, he said.
The one-story, 1,600-square-foot brick home was built on the half-acre property in 1950, according to city property records online.
“Everybody’s out, everybody’s safe,” Cota said. “We’re looking at it, trying to get statements, trying to get an idea of what happened.”
