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Fire damages Fayette home

By LEE WILLIAMS
lwilliams@TheCitizenNews.com

Fire raced through the kitchen of a Fayetteville home Monday, rousing several neighbors from their houses.

Owners Roy and Barbara Hand of 285 Banks Road were not home when the fire broke out about 4:45 p.m. They returned to find their home ablaze.

Bobby Nipper, 65, who runs Banks Vineyard, a fresh fruit stand across the street from the house, was among the first to witness the blaze and called for help.

“I called them and it looked like it was forever before they got here,” said Nipper while savoring one of the stand’s specialties, muscadines.

Smoke continued to pour from the rear of the home about 5 p.m. as firefighters worked to snuff out the blaze. Nipper stared at the rising smoke in amazement.

Nipper said he watched as a Fayette County sheriff deputy arrived and parked in the driveway of the home.

This couldn’t be right, Nipper thought. “I said, they don’t need him. They need a fire truck now.”

Nipper felt as if the fire engine took forever to arrive. But Capt. Pete Nelms, spokesman for the Fayette County Fire Department, the agency in charge of the fire, indicated the first fire truck arrived in four minutes.

“The first phone call was received at 4:42 p.m.,” Nelms said. “We were dispatched at 4:43 p.m. Engine 92 (from the Fayetteville Fire Department) was first on scene at 4:47 p.m. and that is documented.”

The Hands’ daughter, Diane Chumley, stared sadly at her childhood home that had been reduced to a blackened brick shell. The fire caused extensive damage to the home that had been a part of her family for more than 40 years. The damage estimate was unavailable.

“I grew up here,” Chumley said. “We had all of our pictures in there. There were five children that lived here.

“I can empathize now when I see people on TV that have had a fire. I can see what it means to them that they’ve lost things that they can’t replace.”