Family loses dog, possessions in New Palestine fire.

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NEW PALESTINE — The young woman was standing next to the burned-out apartment unit, going through a turquoise-colored suitcase with burn marks on it.

The case was full of soaked clothes. She was looking through them to see if she could salvage anything from a fire that gutted one side of a duplex late Tuesday night in New Palestine.

Three people — a mother, her daughter and her granddaughter — lost everything in the fire, including the family dog.

No one was home when the fire broke out in the duplex at 30 W. Mill St. By the time firefighters arrived, around 10 p.m., flames were coming through the roof.

“It was heavily involved when we got there — probably about 50 to 75 percent of the ceiling was engulfed,” said Brandon Kleine, battalion chief of the Sugar Creek Township Fire Department.

The back half of the duplex was a total loss. The front unit, which was unoccupied, sustained smoke and water damage.

The duplex is owned by CPM Enterprise I LLC, according to county records.

The blaze kept firefighters busy for several hours. Kleine said the fire had too much of a head start for that part of the duplex to be saved.

The young woman who was going through debris at the site on Wednesday morning declined to give her name but said she, her mother and her daughter, originally from Florida, had been living in the duplex for the past year. Their dog, who died in the fire, had been a Christmas gift, she said.

Due to the number of calls reporting on how big the fire was, Kleine immediately called for an extra alarm, he said. Fire crews from Sugar Creek Township, Buck Creek Township, Greenfield Fire Territory and Fountaintown responded to the blaze. “We used everybody,” Kleine said.

No other nearby homes were damaged.

Fire investigators returned to the scene Wednesday to start their investigation. A cause is undetermined.