joe phillips – C-VILLE Weekly

Awakened to explosions and flames

Four Jaunt buses and a townhome were up in flames when the Charlottesville Fire Department received a call for service around 2:40am July 13.

Alice Facknitz, who lives in the Carlton Bridge apartment complex behind the Jaunt station and the Linden Town Lofts townhomes, says she woke to what she later learned was the sound of bus tires exploding.

“I was woken up by a loud noise and my apartment shaking as if someone in a neighboring apartment slammed a door violently,” she says. “I looked out my fourth-floor window to see a column of black smoke and flames issuing from the top of a three-story condo about 50 yards away.”

When she exited her apartment, the first responders hadn’t arrived yet. As the flames climbed up the side of the townhome and were issuing from the top, Facknitz watched the firefighters position a truck’s ladder over the flames and began extinguishing the fire.

Captain Joe Phillips was on the scene before 3am, along with at least four fire trucks, two aerial units and eventually about 40 fire/rescue workers, according to a press release.

No one was injured during the fire that, according to Phillips, extended through a Jaunt parking lot, a wooden fence and into the end townhouse at 1013 Linden Avenue. That home, which is in a six-unit row, has severe damage, while the second in the row has extensive water damage. The remaining four were relatively unscathed.

“At one point, the fire increased in intensity just as it looked to be under control and they deployed another ladder truck,” she says, adding that it took until 3:30am for the crew to put the visible flames out. About 30 residents were outside watching.

A Linden Town Lofts resident says a number of the onlookers had been evacuated from their apartments, and she wasn’t given the all clear to reenter her’s until about 5:00am. The fire did not damage her townhome.

The Charlottesville Fire Marshal’s Office has determined that the fire began in the mulch area behind one of the buses, and was caused by radiant heat from its exhaust system. The preliminary damage is estimated to be over $850,000, according to Phillips.

Another fire is still under investigation across the street at 1009 Linden Avenue, where a building behind the Blue Ridge Roofing Company and multiple vehicles were destroyed in April.

Updated July 14 at 9am with comments from a Linden Town Lofts resident.

Updated July 17 at 10am with the cause of fire.

Additional photos below. Click to enlarge.

Courtesy of the Charlottesville Fire Department

Four Jaunt buses were destroyed by the fire. Staff photo

One townhome had severe damage. Staff photo

Condemned house: City prepares to take next step

A house on East Jefferson Street, flanked by doors that could hardly be opened, was deemed unfit for human occupancy for being littered with items that made it “impossible to safely travel through the house in the event of an emergency,” just weeks before the emergency responders evacuated a man through a window of the home.

Neighborhood Development Services issued homeowner C. W. Rogers Jr. an order of correction on January 1, which required him and any additional occupants to leave his home at 1108 E. Jefferson St. until he or his power of attorney fixes the four safety, health and sanitation violations to the Virginia maintenance code.

Joe Phillips, a current Charlottesville Fire Department captain and member of more than 17 years, says books and other household items were scattered on the floor of the home when Rogers’ brother arrived to retrieve some paperwork and heard a man moaning from inside a bedroom. After the brother called the fire department for help, Phillips’ crew managed to enter through the front door, but was unable to take the man out that way because of the clutter, according to Phillips.

The man was lying in bed, next to an accessible window when Rogers’ brother called for help. “It was easier to slide him out [a] window than it was to carry him across items in the house,” Phillips says. The crew hitched a ladder slide up to the open window and strapped him into a stokes basket, which is designed to slide down the rails of the ladder.

The man’s relationship to Rogers is unknown, but a neighbor speculates that it was a roommate still living in the home after Rogers relocated. Refusing to give her name, she said Rogers is the street’s oldest inhabitant and that neighbors are fond of him.

Alexander Ikefuna, director of NDS, says the East Jefferson house has already been condemned and a February 15 deadline has been set to institute a plan of action for the structure. In the January notice, the home was cited for unsanitary conditions and, though utilities were activated, records showed they hadn’t been used in several months.

“It is hard to tell what is trash and what might be salvageable household belongings,” the notice reads. “There is trash, rubbish and debris amongst all the accumulation of belongings.”

The home, sold to Rogers in August 1962, was up for a re-inspection on February 5, but Ikefuna says the items in the house had not been removed, so the home was not re-inspected. It is unclear whether the home will require demolition, but in 2011, the city did demolish a structure that wasn’t maintained at 704 Montrose Ave.

According to city records, Rogers also owned that home.

Year to date, Ikefuna says 12 city properties were deemed unfit for human occupancy for various reasons. In some cases, repairs were made immediately and that designation was lifted. For example, he says that after a roof collapse on Market Street just weeks ago, the structure was deemed unsafe and owners immediately had a portion of the building demolished, making the building stable enough to allow workers inside to continue construction.

To condemn a structure, the city follows the Virginia maintenance code “to adjudge unfit for occupancy,” which Ikefuna says has two meanings.

An unsafe structure could be one with conditions causing at least a portion of the building to collapse and endanger the safety of occupants or the surrounding public—such as the Market Street roof collapse—or a structure could have conditions that are dangerous to the occupants or public by disrepair or lack of maintenance, sanitary conditions, lack of utilities or required plumbing facilities—such as the East Jefferson and Montrose Avenue homes.

“If owners make repairs then all is well,” he says. “If owners are neglectful then we can take them to court.”