THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 23, 1994 TAG: 9412230545
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LARRY W. BROWN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines
Just three days before Christmas, seven people were left homeless when a fire, believed ignited by an unattended kerosene heater, swept through their two-story rooming house Thursday afternoon.
Five adults and a child were home when the fire started on the first floor of the frame structure in the 800 block of Reservoir Ave. They escaped unharmed, without their belongings.
One of the roomers was at work. Other residents said the fire started in his room.
The three-alarm fire, reported at 4:13 p.m., destroyed the building in about an hour.
One firefighter suffered second-degree burns on his face and was treated at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital.
Annie Crump, 49, was sitting in her upstairs room when another roomer, Sheila Barfield, told her the house was filling with smoke.
``Now we don't have anywhere to go,'' said Crump, who had lived in the rooming house for about 13 months with her husband, Rob. ``I was scared. I didn't have a chance to get anything. All of my Christmas stuff . . . and everything is gone.''
Haywood Lewis, 34, said he was walking past the rooming house when he saw a roomer, Lloyd Wright, 47, running out with the burning heater. Lewis said he helped Barfield as she left the building with her 7-month-old daughter, Trisha Warren.
He said he then tried to enter the house but was driven back by smoke and flames. By then, everyone had escaped.
Lewis said he ran to a house across the street and called 911.
Wright, who was in his downstairs room when the fire broke out in another room, said he tried to prevent the blaze from spreading by pulling the heater out of the building.
But the heat was so intense, he said, that the room ``exploded'' into flames. The fire then spread quickly through both floors, destroying everything, Wright said.
Barfield, who was unable to gather any belongings, said she had no idea where she and her daughter will stay.
``All of my clothes are gone,'' she said. ILLUSTRATION: JOSEPH JOHN KOTLOWSKI/Staff color photos
Norfolk firefighters work Thursday at a blaze that was believed to
be caused by an unattended kerosene heater.
Sheila Barfield clutches her baby, Trisha Warren, while their
Reservoir Avenue residence burns.
by CNB