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Another City Fire: Fourth In Nine Days
posted (September 1, 2010)
There was a fire this morning in the city - it is the fourth fire to destroy a wooden structure in 9 days. This one happened at around 11:15 on Fuller's Lane - which connects Wilson and Kelly streets. As this amateur video showed, the fire tore through the small wooden structure.

Monica Bodden, Reporting
This is the amateur video captured by Leo Javier Matute, who was near Fuller's Lane when he heard the fire engines. It shows the frantic flurry of activity as the fire team arrived at the scene and scrambled to get hoses in place as the tongues of flame were darting through the windows.

It was a frenzy as the fire team tried to control the blaze and confine it to one building -as there were other wooden structures nearby. In the end they couldn't save the building as a cloud of smoke mushroomed away.

After, relatives and friends huddled in prayer - while others passed the house on fuller's lane sobbing....

Area residents say the house had stood for decades even before Hurricane Hattie.

A building with history but today it was history as the old strips of wood were like matchsticks for a fire. The only thing left to burn was a cigarette and the beads of water from the fire hose did little, but offer a shower to the charred remains.

No one was at home and neighbor Charleston Cleland - who asked to appear off camera - rushed in to try to put out the blaze:

Voice of Charleston Cleland, Neighbor
"Help was the first thing; I would want the same favors for me because only my wife and I live there. If they call for somebody I would wish they come to help the same way. I didn't know fighting a fire was so hard but I what I see the firemen doing is hard. Those guys are real heroes. My son went into the hospital because while he was helping me he pass out, he couldn't handle the smoke, the ambulance took him."

And while his son was knocked out by smoke inhalation, Cleland soldiered on:

Voice of Charleston Cleland, Neighbor
"When we went into the downstairs it was only the little section that you see the stove right now, only that section was on fire. We had to leave it alone because the fire was near the gas tank. The gas tank was too close to the stove so we had to leave it alone and just try take out things that we could out of the house before the gas tank exploded. By the time we got upstairs the whole room was on fire already. We didn't know the downstairs was already we thought it was only the stove. When we walk inside the floor was hot, very hot because I was barefoot. I went inside and see the two TV's explode. It was there that I got cut."

Only a few mattresses were saved. Neighbors say the house which was home to eight adults who were all at work.

Our thanks to the ITEC computer Engineers for that amateur video.

The fire department confirmed that a small butane leak started behind the stove.

They also confirmed that the building did not have electricity.

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