Fire guts commercial building near Saluda
by Tom Chillemi
 |
| Click the image to watch an audio slideshow. |
The building, owned by Linda and Chuck Leasure, caught fire about 11:30 a.m. and the Middlesex emergency dispatcher broadcast the call for firefighters to respond to Al’s Auto Body, which is in the front part of the building.
At one point there were 10 fire trucks at the scene. Route 17 was blocked in both directions for about an hour. Traffic was then routed to one lane in each direction while Route 17 North stayed blocked by fire equipment.
“We’re waiting for the cause to be determined,” said Linda Leasure.
Mrs. Leasure said three wrecker trucks were inside the back section of the building when the fire started, but were saved. “We (Leasure’s Wrecker Service) will stay in business and we will rebuild,” she said.
Thick black smoke billowed from the front garage door as firemen began fighting the blaze that would take about five hours to extinguish.
Chuck McAlister of Hartfield said he could see the black smoke from the Robert O. Norris Bridge over the Rappahannock River at Topping.
James Pitts Jr., captain of the Middlesex Volunteer Fire Department (MVFD) of Urbanna, and MVFD fire chief Bill Thrift both work at Pitts Lumber, only a few hundred yards from the fire. Pitts, one of the first firefighters on the scene, said the fire appeared to have started “either above or in the office.”
Pitts’ experience told him that fighting this type of fire, in a large commercial building, would require help. “When we got there black smoke was rolling out the front of the building and we knew it was more than we could handle, so we got everybody we could,” he said.
Tanker trucks hustled to keep two dump tanks full so pumpers could draft from them and spray on the fire. About 30 firefighters worked to knock down the blaze and clean up afterwards.
The ladder truck from the Lower Middlesex Volunteer Fire Department in Deltaville was used to spray water on top of the building.
“We made a good attack on it,” said Pitts. “We knocked it out pretty quick. We’re lucky we have (fire) departments close enough that can get here as quick as they did.”
Deltaville’s ladder truck was used “twice in two days,” noted Pitts, referring to a fire that destroyed a house in Urbanna the day before (see related story).
After the major part of the fire was out, hot spots remained between the layers of the roof, said Fire Chief Thrift. The ceiling was metal with black paper fiberboard over it, and it all is topped with a rubber roof. “That fiberboard kept burning from the underside,” he said.
An excavator was used to remove part of a side wall so firefighters could spray water on the smoldering fiberboard.
A Corvette and an older model Chevy II were in Al’s Auto Body at the time of the fire and could not be removed until most of the fire was out, said Thrift. Both cars were damaged.
Al Dubeau, owner of Al’s Auto Body, said he was able to get three cars out of his shop before the heavy smoke forced him out of the building.
Fire departments that responded came from Urbanna, Water View, Hartfield, Deltaville and Gloucester. The MVFD Auxiliary, the Central Middlesex Volunteer Rescue Squad, VDOT, and Middlesex Sheriff’s Office all assisted at the scene.
Six fires in 12 weeks
In the past 12 weeks there have been six major fires that destroyed four houses and two businesses in Middlesex County.
 |
| Two residents, an adult male and a child, managed to escape this house fire on Urbanna Road September 16. |
On September 16, fire gutted an old house on Urbanna Road. Reportedly, the fire was started by a candle that had been dropped on a bedspread.
On October 22, fire claimed a home on Poplar Drive in Piankatank Shores in Hartfield.
Moo’s Diner in Urbanna burned in the early morning hours of November 4. The cause is believed to be electrical.
On November 13, an unattended candle started a fire that destroyed a waterfront home on Bayport Road in Jamaica in upper Middlesex.
On November 24, a older house in Urbanna was consumed by a fire that started in the furnace area.
On November 25, a commercial building housing Leasure’s Wrecker Service Inc. and Al’s Body Shop on Route 17 near Saluda was severely damaged by fire. The cause has not been determined. Leasure’s is still in operation (see related story).
“I can’t remember seeing this many fires in this short a time,” said James Pitts, chief of the MVFD.
Jimmy Walden, chief of the Lower Middlesex Volunteer Fire Department, said the recent number of serious fires is definitely unusual. “You go through spells where you don’t have anything for a couple months, but we’ve had a bunch of fires lately.”
Walden said the LMVFD ladder truck has been used three times in three weeks, two times last week. “It’s just a fluke,” he said.