Worth the effort?

First of all, do not take what the wrecker says for fact or as the truth. If are not already planning to, go and inspect it yourself to make sure that it is what the wrecker says it is. Then if it is what the wrecker says it is, decide if you want to actually go through with buying it and think rationally about it for a little bit. A lot of the time excitement gets in the way of the reality. Personally, I would not touch it as you just do not know the extent of the fire damage or of anything is warped or something like that. Fire does some pretty destructive stuff. Do you have a car ready to put the engine in? Are you absolutely sure of parts availability? If a STOCK engine is hard to find, performance parts must be damn near impossible if you don't want to import anything.
Good luck, I hope you find this useful.