SOUTH CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A large blaze broke out at a home on Highland Avenue in South Charleston Thursday night, destroying the roof and likely, the entire property.
The call went out to the South Charleston Fire Department at 7:13, and crews were still suppressing parts of the fire nearly two hours after the call came in.
One man was occupying the home at the time of the fire and was able to get out to safety in time.
Jay Hewitt, a resident of the area, said it was a fire unlike he had ever seen.
“I’ve never seen a house fire like this,” Hewitt said Thursday evening. “It’s raging. The smoke is just barreling out of the house. They’ve got hoses on it from every direction, they just can’t get it out. It’s a terrible fire.”
Hewitt said crews responded quickly to the fire, but it got out of control in a hurry.
“They just can’t get it under control,” Hewitt said. “Once they get it out a little bit, then flames burst out of the roof in another section, and they get that out and here comes flames bursting out of the hole in the roof in another section. It’s out of control.”
Fire Chief Virgil White says this fire was as bad as any South Charleston has seen in 2024.
“This is probably the worst fire we’ve had in our city all year,” White said.
White also said that the high temperatures put extra stress on his crew trying to put out the flames.
“It just makes our job a little bit harder because you get overheated quicker,” White said. “With the hot temperatures outside and the fire being hot, you can’t really cool down, so getting overheated is always an issue.”
Alyce Macken, who was on Highland Avenue visiting her son and grandchildren, says she didn’t think what she saw was a fire at first.
“I thought it was steam coming off the room from condensation,” Macken said. “Then I turned back around just a couple minutes later, and it was black, and I thought, ‘oh my gosh, there’s a fire,’ and so, I yelled at my son and son-in-law, and they ran over there, and they were calling 911 as they ran over.”
Macken, who had previously lost her home to a Northern California wildfire, says this blaze was a bit different.
“It was much darker,” Macken said. “We were in a forest fire where they had given us just 15 minutes to get out and the whole subdivision burnt down within two days,” Macken said.
Macken says the Thursday house fire brought back some past memories.
“Just the smell and everything, it does bring back a lot of bad memories,” Macken said. “It’s something that doesn’t leave you.”
It was reported by multiple residents on the scene Thursday that it was a grease fire that destroyed the house.