Terry Kromka had just gotten home, checked his e-mail and changed his clothes when the telephone rang.

Vector Security called to say the motion detector was going off at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 5286 in Farrell, where Kromka is commander.

Kromka said he checked all the doors and locked up after midnight bingo finished up; he couldn't imagine why the motion sensor would be going off.

As he was talking, the Vector representative said a fire alarm was now going off, and Kromka headed back to the post at 1233 Idaho St.

Smoke was thick and fire was starting to show when firefighters, who were dispatched at 3:08 a.m. Sunday, arrived on the scene, said Fire Chief Joseph Santell.

"When it came over the roof and hit the gas, it was history," said Kromka, 54, a Vietnam veteran and member since 1975. "It just really raged."

"I was dumbfounded," said quartermaster Bill Susinski, 73, of Hermitage, a Korean War veteran. "I didn't think something like that could happen. It's supposed to be a metal building."

Sure, the steel walls are left standing, but just about anything flammable went up in smoke.

"We definitely lost everything," said Kromka, who called the devastation "heartbreaking."

Susinski said he's been a member since about the time the building was built, in the early '50s.

Santell said the blaze spread quickly in the roof.

"The fire just worked its way down," he said, adding that damage was estimated at $300,000 to $400,000.

A state police fire marshal said the blaze appeared to have started from an electrical problem in the area of a cooler in the bocce area, Kromka said.

The post boasts about 800 members, when social members are included, and featured a bar, indoor bocce courts and a meeting room that was used by groups such as Mercer County Head Start and Wheatland Tube workers.

Most of the members are World War II and Korean War veterans, Kromka said.

"It's like a family," he said.

The VFW's regular monthly meeting will be held Wednesday at the New Murray Bell VFW Post 7597, 314 Idaho St. Kromka is urging as many members to attend the meeting as possible as the main topic of discussion will be rebuilding.

Kromka said he thinks the members will want to rebuild on the same site.

Hermitage and Sharon firefighters assisted, and the Farrell street crew spread salt to melt the freezing water.

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