MAJOR FIRES
April 2, 1959
Culpeper Recreation Center
The Culpeper Bowling Center
Nick’s Billiard Center
May 7, 1959 Culpeper Farmers’ Cooperative, Inc.
Reuben Lillard, Pete Clatterbuck, Jack Griffin
December 10, 1982 Jeffersonton County Store
Jeffersonton County Store Lost In Flames
Culpeper County Landmark Destroyed By Fire
December 10, 1982
The Jeffersonton County Store was destroyed by a wind-fanned blaze which kept short-handed volunteer firemen battling it from about 10 in the morning until 3 p.m. The landmark structure, built in the late 1800’s was the last store remaining in the village of Jeffersonton.
Fire trucks from Warrenton, Culpeper, Brandy Station and Amissville responded to the alarm, but Brandy Fire Chief Tony Troilo said only a few men came with each truck and efforts were hampered by “lack of manpower.” Troilo said that although the store was still standing, it is probably a total loss.
The fire apparently started in living quarters in the rear of the store. Raymond Heflin, who operated the business, said “the first thing I knew about it was the lights flickered.” He smelled smoke, and ran back to the rear of the long building to alert his daughter, Sharon Dovell, who lived there with her husband, Troy, and infant son. She was upstairs, Heflin said. “I got her down, and told her to hit the floor.” The child, only a few months old, was asleep but was unharmed, he added, and the family got out without difficulties.
Tongue and groove flooring in the ceiling did not help matters, as the fire moved upward to the roof. It was hard to get to as it centered in a shallow space under the roof, firemen said. The volunteers wore air packs to get inside, went onto the roof to direct water downwards, and contended constantly with the heavy and windblown smoke.
The very old frame structure, owned by Wayne Duncan of Culpeper, burned with intensity in the high wind which brought dropping temperatures during the morning. The wind, pushing the smoke clouds almost parallel to the ground, encouraged the fire in the direction away from other buildings; a very large frame house behind it, in which Raymond Heflin lives, was unharmed, as was another across the road to the north.
Living in the house to the north are Roland and Mary Clement, who operated the store and post office there for many years. The first section of the store building was constructed about 1880 for W.H. Werner, according to the county historic map. Roland Clement said yesterday that he and his two brothers bought it in 1921, and the three ran it together for several years. Clement then operated it himself from the mid-20’s to 1973.
He also ran the post office in the building from 1934 – 1972. For many years, the structure was the unofficial community center. It has been added on to several times.
Heflin has operated the store, leased with an option to purchase, for about five years. His brother, John, operates the Poplar Corner store.
The business was a general merchandise country store, handling a little of everything, and with the traditional pot-bellied stove. At one time, Mary Clement said, there were three stores at Jeffersonton, and only this one remained.
Steve Corbin & Joe Kratochvil
Firefighters fight fire at Jeffersonton Country Store Thursday. Firefighters seek rest during the more than five-hour battle.
September 8, 1983 Assembly Of God Church
Peanut McAlister & Jeff Karnes
Some 60 firemen battled flames, heat and smoke for more than an hour early Wednesday morning after fire struck the 15-year old Assembly of God Church on Chestnut Street.
Flames, 10 feet high, burst through the roof of the building at 12:30 a.m. just as the first firemen from Culpeper arrived on the scene. Within 15 to 20 minutes firemen dosed most of the flames but remained to mop up until 2:30 a.m.
They were joined by reinforcements from Orange and Brandy Station. Salem Volunteers were on stand-by alert at the Culpeper firehouse throughout the fire.
The fire apparently started in a small foyer closet, burned upward through the ceiling and burst through the church’s roof.
Firemen say the flames’ upward movement probably lessened the amount of damage to the structure.
“It was the best thing that could have happened. The flames vented themselves through the roof instead of spreading horizontally,” Alan Seale said Wednesday.
Seal, an assistant fire chief with Culpeper, directed the battle against the blaze. “We would have had a total loss if it had gone the other way,” Seal said.
Assembly of God, Pastor, William Smith Jr., attributes the upward movement to an attic fan in the carport over the church’s entrance. He said it probably drew the heat and flames up. Serious damage was limited to the closet, foyer, two restrooms and the pastor’s study. The entire building suffered smoke damage. Estimates about the cost of fixing the building were unavailable Wednesday night.
The cause of the fire remains a mystery.
“We know exactly where it started and how it burned but there’s no logical explanation of why,” Culpeper Police Investigator Gerald Yancey said.
Yancy and State Police arson investigator Roger Broadbent spent all day Wednesday sifting through the remains from the fire.
According to Yancey, the two found nothing to indicate how the fire started.
It was by chance that the fire was discovered in time to save most of the building.
Ward Wilkerson Jr., an executive assistant to the president at the American Security Council, called the sheriff’s office after he saw smoke pouring out from the building’s eves.
He had been walking his dog just after midnight when the dog went into the church property. Wilkerson followed, saw smoke, jogged around to the back of the building where “it was just pouring out,” and ran to his home nearby to call for firefighters.
“I guess you could say was a case of being in the right place at the right time. If I’d had the big dog with me I wouldn’t have been there,” he said.
The fire proceeds by less that a week a planned Sunday dedication of a new $60,000 addition to the building. Church members had been painting and cleaning the church Tuesday evening in preparation for the dedication.
Except for smoke damage, the new addition and sanctuary remained untouched.
Smith arrived at the fire just as firefighters did, and remained throughout the night to watch for flare-ups or vandals. Windows and doors were left open to air out the building
A steady flow of church members and the curious stopped at the church all day Wednesday. Smith remained there all day.
“It could have been a lot worse. But we can survive this,” Smith said.
Firefighters battled exhausting heat (above) as well as flames Wednesday morning at the Assembly of God Church. Firemen used ladder trucks from Orange Volunteer Department to approach the flames from above.
Erie World
Firefighters work in an Erie world. Surrounded by flames and heat inside the burning structures, they emerge to find themselves in a gray would of swirling smoke and bright lights.
Fireman Richard Alvey struggles to remove his heavy clothing while an exhausted Steve Corbin sprawls in front of him.
Fire breaks through the roof of the Assembly of God Church on Chestnut Street about 12:30 a.m. Wednesday as Jesse Powell and Jimmy Kratochvil, two of the first firemen at the scene drag a hose into the building.
May 30, 1985 - Tanker Tragedy Turns to Triumph
Jesse Powell & Craig Frazier
Culpeper Volunteer firefighter Jesse Powell sprays the hot tires of the Anderson Oil tanker with chemical foam after the fire at Bill’s Gulf was brought under control.
The tanker fire, being doused by chemical foam above, attracted a wide variety of media coverage including on-the-scene reports by WCVA-WCUL.
Culpeper Fire Assistant Chief Frazier Breeden is framed by the two jagged holes that melted through both sides of the tanker’s aluminum shell.
Weather conditions, as unusual availability of manpower, and a lot of luck combined last week to avert a potential tragedy on the southern end of Main Street.
Within minutes of their arrival Thursday morning at Bill’s Gulf, Culpeper volunteer fire fighters were able to extinguish a blaze that had engulfed portions of an Anderson Oil Co. tanker that was in the process of filling underground storage tanks at the station. Had the tanker continued to burn unabated, the resulting explosion would have destroyed or damaged anything within a several block radius, police and fire fighters say.
The rain and accompanying cold which postponed the annual firemen’s parade helped contain the gasoline vapors, lessening the chance of an explosion, fire fighter Wayne Grimsley said a few days later. “If it had been a day like today, hot and humid, everything would have been gone.”
Grimsley and a number of other Culpeper volunteers had taken Thursday off from work to help prepare for the department’s parade and carnival. Carnival chairman Gary Wise was one of the first to discover the fire on his way to the carnival grounds, and he radioed a report to the sheriff’s department dispatcher at the same time other citizens were calling by telephone.
Many of the fire fighters heard Wise’s message, and they were already heading for the fire hall when they received the actual call from the dispatcher. The first truck out contained half dozen men, and almost immediately a second truck with another large contingent of volunteers followed.
“It turned out to be a bad day for the parade but it was good for us that we had the manpower available. That made a big difference,” Grimsley says. With help from Brandy Station and Salem, approximately 40 men responded.
Wayne Grimsley, Steve Corbin, Jesse Powell, and Assistant Chief Frazier Breeden manned the hose that extinguished the blaze, and they were surprised that the mist-like spray they initially used knocked out the fire so quickly.
“We hit one side and then pulled the line around and hit the other side,” Breeden explains. “We put it out real quick.” The fire fighters followed this attack with dry chemicals, which extinguished small puddles of burning gasoline, and then coated the entire rig and the surrounding area with chemical foam.
They learned later from state police hazardous materials investigators that it is very unusual for water alone to put out such a fire so quickly.
The morning produced a number of heroes, but none of the men involved say that they did anything unusual. “If we hadn’t been on the first truck, somebody else would have done it,” Breeden says, while Corbin adds, “The guy pulling the hose is putting out just as much effort as the guy on the end. It’s not until it’s all over that you realize how lucky you were.”
While the fire fighters were eliminating the source of the drama, police officers, rescue volunteers, and several citizens were busy evacuating nearby businesses and residences. Sgt. Michael P. Showalter was the first police officer on the scene, and when he discovered the seriousness of the situation, he called for additional assistance and began to block off the area. Many people had already left when Lt. H. Lee Hart and investigator Kenneth Buraker began evacuating the homes immediately behind the gas station. Culpeper deputies also helped divert traffic from the area.
C & P Telephone Co. workers Charles Bussenger and Russell Tompkins had been driving through town when the tanker erupted into flames, and they immediately thought of the number of elderly residents in the trailers nearby. While Bussenger parked their vehicle, Tompkins ran toward the trailers and began notifying the residents to leave. Bussenger joined Tompkins a few minutes later.
“We went through the whole block and then helped direct traffic,” Bussenger says. He estimates that they remained at the scene about a half hour, but “things were going so fast I really can’t remember.”
Bussenger had seen gasoline fires when he lived in Hampton, so he says he’s well aware of their potential danger. “I was surprised that so many people tried to get to the fire to watch it,” he says.
At one residence, an elderly man refused to leave his seat on the porch and would not open the locked front door so that Bussenger and Hart could reach another senior citizen inside. “Lee said he’d take care of that and he kicked the door out,” Bussenger says.
According to Showalter, the fire started about 8:30 AM when gasoline apparently leaked from a hose coupling, mingled with rainwater, and ran into the D & L restaurant a few feet away. A pilot light on a hot water heater then ignited the mixture and flames quickly shot toward the tanker. Showalter describes the resulting blaze as a large “fireball”. He and assistant fire chief Jackie Griffin estimates that flames were at one time shooting 25 to 50 feet into the air.
The tanker holds up to 8,000 gallons in eight individual compartments, and Breeden cites the unusually high number of sections as a lucky break for successful containment of the blaze. The tanker’s aluminum covering is also designed to melt under such conditions, and fire fighters were able to douse the remaining gasoline in the front section through the two large holes that resulted.
They learned later that two burning hoses were still draining gasoline into the underground storage area from other tanker sections as the fire was being extinguished. About 1,100 gallons of gasoline was left in the tanker when the fire was out.
Clyde E. Kidd owns Bill’s Gulf and the adjoining restaurant, and Patty Settle operates the restaurant. In addition to the estimated $10,000 damage to the tanker and tractor, the restaurant will need about $1,000 of repairs while a parked car received about $500 damage. The tanker was being operated by John C. Graves, 28, of Woodford, who quickly ran from the scene when the gasoline ignited. He was not injured.
“That was the closest I think I’ve ever come to death,” says one law enforcement officer who asked not be identified.
Fire fighters cite the unusually high availability of manpower as a decisive factor in the successful containment of the tanker fire last week at Bill’s Gulf station on S. Main Street. Most of the Culpeper volunteers relaxing above at the conclusion of the fire had taken the day off to work on the department’s annual parade and carnival. More than a dozen responded within the fire’s first few minutes.
WCVA-WCUL news director Paul Asciolla, interviews Culpeper Assistant Fire Chief Jack Griffin. The tragic potential of the blaze was so great that the incident made headlines as far away as Richmond and Roanoke.
Catastrophe avoided
Hours after averting disaster, Culpeper area firefighters inspected a hole created by a blaze yesterday in a partly filled gasoline tanker. Police sealed off a dozen blocks in the southern end of downtown Culpeper before firefighters extinguished the blaze. The fire, which had the potential for destroying a two-block area, caused only minor damage.
March 9, 1983 Merchant Grocery Fire
Fireman Matt Myers & State Police Arson Investigator James Jessup
Tom Franklin, Troy Steele, Jesse Powell, Chief Irvin Breeden
Gary Wise, Jimmy Kratochvil, Troy Steele
April 4, 2005 Fire Chars Apartment, Damages Business
Culpeper County Volunteer firefighters fight back flames with water Sunday at an East Davis Street apartment fire. The fire, which broke out at 4 p.m. Sunday, was extinguished in 20 minutes.
The Learning Tree suffers heavy water damage
A second-story apartment on East Davis Street was destroyed Sunday afternoon, in a fire that sent flames shooting out of the building’s windows. No serious injuries were reported, although officials said some of the building’s residents were treated for smoke inhalation.
Detective Scott Jenkins of the Culpeper Police Department said the blaze at 105 E. Davis Street was reported at about 4:00 p.m. Jenkins did not know the cause of the fire early Sunday evening, but said it appeared to be accidental. The residents of the apartment, a husband and wife were both home at the time, as was the resident of the neighboring apartment. Everyone managed to escape through the back stairwell, Jenkins said. Jack Griffin, chief of the Culpeper Volunteer Fire Department, said the flames were extinguished in about 20 minutes. Fire companies from Culpeper, Brandy Station and Salem were all present, as were Culpeper and Reva rescue squads. When viewed from the street, the front apartment appeared completely charred and blackened. Officials said apartment on that floor was not seriously damaged. The management of the apartment unites, which are owned by J & J Realty, put the damage estimate at $80,000. The first floor, which is occupied by the educational supply store. The Learning Tree, suffered heavy water damage, as well.
Culpeper County Volunteer firefighters, left, continues to work the site of a fire Sunday after the blaze has been extinguished at an East Davis Street apartment. Above, Culpeper County Volunteer firefighters fight back flames with water Sunday at an East Davis Street apartment fire.