A fire that roared through three townhomes at the Greene Glen complex near Morgantown on Monday afternoon was knocked back just as quickly by the seven area volunteer crews that scrambled to the scene.
“If you have shared walls and there’s a fire,” Star City Volunteer Capt. Ethan Bailey said, “you’re going to have problems.”
Bailey said he was grateful no one was seriously injured in the fast-moving blaze.
The complex is on Glen Abbey Lane, near VanVoorhis Road. The fire wasn’t the only thing fast-moving, Bailey said.
“We got the call at 3 p.m. and took off,” he said.
So did other volunteer crews from Westover, Granville, Cassville, Brookhaven and Cheat Lake. River Road’s company enlisted its tanker for the cause, the captain added.
Crews negotiated winding roads and rush-hour traffic to get there. Some 60 minutes after the initial call, the flames were smoldering and everyone was accounted for.
“Those firefighters did a good job out here,” he said.
The flames for a time were doing their job, too, Bailey said.
“We know it broke out somewhere between units 236 and 238,” he said.
He didn’t put an estimate to the damages. The case, he said, has been turned over to the state Fire Marshal’s office for further investigation.
Crews could also be spied walking through smoke-blackened living room areas while others trained hoses on roofs and the sides of both damaged homes – and dwellings untouched.
As many as three families had to get out quick. Tricycles and other toys were in the grassy areas of the fire-damaged homes.
Meanwhile, neighbors, with kids and dogs in tow, gathered in clumps to offer support and watch the ladders go up and hoses unfurl.
The complex is set on an upper row and a lower one. The damaged homes are on the upper side and fire trucks took up most of that parking lot while crews did their work.
Candice Hartsing, who lives on the lower level, ran out to the sidewalk when she heard the commotion.
“People were saying there was an explosion in a kitchen,” she said.
She couldn’t see the flames that chewed through the back entrances of the affected dwellings – but she did witness roiling smoke.
“I said, ‘Here we go,’” she remembered.
Hartsing also said something else: She offered any displaced family a place to stay in her home in the aftermath.
“I’d want somebody to do the same for me,” she said.
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