News Flash: Townhouses Burning in Haymarket, VA
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
See the white smoke in this photo. Townhouses are on fire in Haymarket, VA. Jack and I noticed the huge cloud of black smoke rising in the air when we were on Linton Hall Road near Gateway Shopping Center.
We followed the black smoke home and found Prince William County police vehicles and Prince William County firetrucks and ambulances racing to the scene. Our neighbor Art said that he could see both the flames and the black smoke all the way back in Centerville, VA which is in Fairfax County.
We became ambulance chasers and went pass our house to the lovely brick townhouses further down the street. There we saw two hook and ladder units raised and spraying water on the flames. Click on the photo above and you will see the red flames of fire shooting out from a second floor window.
Jack counted over 12 firetrucks at the scene with just as many ambulances and police vehicles. I noticed one firetruck was from the Lake Manassas Fire Station which is clear over on the southeast side of Manassas. (We live directly northwest of Manassas.)
Here you can see the long hoses strung from a fire hydrant to the hook and ladder unit to spray water on the flames.
Here comes another firetruck to fight the fire. Hope to know more about this by tomorrow.
Update: Dickie walked over with Bev and she said that they could see that the heat from the fires had melted the vinyl siding on the townhouse across the street. Dickie also told me that she said some neighbors standing on the street said that they heard a very loud explosion so maybe the cause is a gas leak of some type. But this is just hearsay. We don't know and will not know for awhile. The good news is that we think all residents were able to escape the burning houses and a pet dog was later rescued.
3 comments:
Joann: Coming home and seeing smoke coming from your town has to give a bad feeling in the stomach. I certainly good that you haven't heard anyone was hurt. Very nice photos, right place, right time for a blogger. Keep us updated on any further info.
More hearsay- the unit where the fire started was a rental, and the mom and three children who live there were all out. The one right next door had a mom and two young children playing in the basement who had no idea what was going on until they were warned. No one was hurt, and all the animals were rescued. (I don't know who did that, but I think it is fabulous that they did). I also heard that it started on the deck- so maybe a gas grill exploded? Is that even possible?
Very dramatic photos Cindy. Superb action shots but am glad to hear that everyone got out okay, including the pooch. Thanks for sharing and I guess we're neighbors of sorts, I live about 15minutes from Manassas on the Centreville side. Have a great weekend.
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