Morning Fire Destroys Home

A neighbor recalls an early morning blaze that’s left one family without a home.Fire crews say no one was home at 2300 Linda Lane in Boone County around 6:30 this morning when the fire broke out. One neighbor tells ABC 17 News he didn’t see anything when he left for church at 6:20. Within just minutes, 6:25 by one account, one neighbor says he saw thick smoke coming from the home, so thick he couldn’t see the driveway from his home less than 100 feet away.”Our house was completely surrounded with smoke,” William Hammond recalls before calling 911.He says he had to run through the smoke to check whether anyone was home.”So I ran down the road here and then came around to see if their cars were there, and they were not home,” Hammond said. “I had to run through the smoke. I couldn’t even see the road.”Fire crews say flame were coming from the home when they arrived on scene.Lieutenant Martina Pounds tells ABC 17 News the fire may have started in a downstairs laundry room, and was likely burning for a while before anyone spotted it, allowing flames to grow.She says windy conditions made fighting the flames and smoke a challenge.”Once it was venting and the windows were open and all that, then the wind can get in and sometimes that drives the fire, too,” Lt. Pounds said.She goes on to say windows broke as the fire heated up, allowing more wind to blow more flames. That wind continued throughout the day, causing crews to continue checking the fire hadn’t rekindled.They were back out investigating the cause when ABC 17’s Janai Norman caught up with Hammond.Norman asked, “As windy as it is right now, was it about this windy this morning?””It wasn’t this windy, but it was pretty windy,” Hammond said. “The smoke was just blowing through our houses and things, so my house still smells like smoke.”Fire officials say as many as 33 fire fighters were on the scene this morning, and the homeowners have since been notified about the blaze.