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File photo
Jeff Gray, owner of Scene 3 Boardshop, carries a sign out of the rubble of the burnt remains of the Jefferson Business Center on U.S. 221 in Bedford County on Sunday. The sign had been sitting outside the skate shop and survived Saturday’s fire, unlike most of the other merchandise in the store.
A camera kept in a Lynchburg woman’s car in case of a crash or other emergency gave investigators evidence needed to pinpoint the origin of a fire that destroyed a strip mall in Forest last week.
Officials announced Thursday that discarded smoking materials likely caused the fire. Bedford Fire Marshall John Jennings credited Laura Layton’s photos with aiding the investigation.
Layton was inside one of the businesses at the strip mall, IC Studios tattoo shop, when an employee from the nearby Goodwill store ran over last Saturday with the news that the mall was on fire. When the shop’s occupants evacuated, Layton grabbed her camera and began snapping photographs.
“It’s not something you ever really expect to happen,” Layton said in an interview Thursday afternoon.
Investigators believe her photographs were the first taken at the scene.
Several were displayed at the news conference, showing the ashen remains of cardboard boxes and the fire engulfing the wooden deck of the Blackwater Bike Shop. They also showed the burn patterns pointing to the spot of origin and a tattoo shop employee using a fire hose to try to extinguish the blaze, among other images.
In the seven minutes it took firefighters to arrive, the fire had spread to the building’s eaves and beyond, consuming clues to the point of origin, Jennings said. Layton’s photographs were credited with saving the county countless hours in determining the origin of the fire.
Layton said she picked up the camera to document the fire just in case photos came in handy later. She had no idea how fast and how far the fire would grow.
“This is devastating for everyone who owned businesses there,” she said. “These were small, local, family-owned businesses. Most of these people who ran the businesses are like family. It was devastating to watch their livelihoods go up in flames.”
The fire, which began shortly before 6 p.m. Saturday, destroyed California Nails salon, Scene 3 Boardshop, Blackwater Bike Shop, a Healthy Inspirations fitness center, a Virginia Farm Bureau Insurance location and IC Studios in the Jefferson Business Center, which stood off U.S. 221 between Graves Mill Road and Cottontown Road in Forest.
Jennings said the blaze began in a pile of about six cardboard boxes broken down next to the porch. From there, the fire spread under the deck and ignited a pile of old bicycle tires. The heat caused by the burning rubber made the fire climb and burn into the wooden eaves of the building. Then, it burned without impediment through the open attic space while the first firefighters began trying to extinguish the visible flames.
The exact cause of the fire will never be known with absolute certainty, Jennings said.
“I feel like there is a good possibility that it may have been related to smoking, that someone lit a cigarette with a match and tossing the match aside served as the ignition source,” he said.
More than three dozen cigarette butts were found in the vicinity of the bike shop’s back porch, Jennings said. He said the shop’s owner was helping his last customer of the day when the fire broke out.
Jennings said while he can’t absolutely rule out arson, there are no indicators that the fire was intentionally set.
Layton’s photographs also showed that the fire was not electrical in origin, as the building’s conduits weren’t involved in the initial moments of the fire, Jennings said.
“By studying these pictures, a lot of questions were able to be answered about how the fire initiated,” he said. “The ignition source could have been any type of open flame. … I don’t know if we would be able to answer those questions without these photographs.”
Reader Reactions
I want to be clear. I do not represent the bike shop. I am not the official shop spokesperson. I do not work there. In fact, I live over 3.5 hours from Bedford in Alexandria.
I first posted here because I have been following media coverage and found it woefully lacking. While the ongoing coverage has been substantial with several daily lead stories, the reports irresponsibly lacked depth of detail. When the media continually reported that the fire started behind the shop without either a.) reporting more deeply or b.) explicitly stating that not all facts are known, they implicitly assigned blame to the shop. They did not do this literally, but according to journalism ethics, media is required to think about how their viewers will interpret reports and be unmistakably clear in what they communicate. In other words, I was complaining about what I perceived was irresponsible journalism.
I regret calling out Vttova in an emotionally charged comment. Ironically, Vttova was making the point that I wish the media made: not all facts are known. What upset me is that while stating this point, she/he continued to implicitly or explicitly assign culpability to the shop.
I have not been defensive; I have been aggressive—perhaps excessively—and if I’ve personally offended you I apologize. Aggressive or not, I have continually posted openly, fully disclosing my name and the position I am advocating.
Thank you.
From being there I will say that no one from any of the businesses that I know of or saw were out back smoking. It is unfair for anyone to point fingers at any of the businesses. No one knows what really happened or how, they only could determine the origin of the fire, which is undeniable, it started with some cardboard boxes caching fire behind the bike shop. It is speculation that it was a cigarette or match that started the fire. It may also be mentioned that people from Goodwill Park behind the Jefferson business center so they don’t take up parking in their lot reserved for customers. There have also several occasions been teens loitering around behind the building that have had to be run off the property but multiple people. If I am not mistaken there were reports of vandalism over a year ago behind one of the businesses. There are houses behind the building and any number of people could have been around there.
And Javaun, I am not pointing fingers, but the fired caught cardboard boxes that should not have been around the bike shop to begin with. Then it spread to the rubber tires that were there as well. These flammable items should not have been lying out back, (which I might mention may be in violation of the lease and contract they signed for the building) .Yes throwing cigarette butts is wrong, but you can’t pinpoint one person for doing this. There is no telling who could have done it.
I agree the bike shop seems to be a little overly defensive. No other businesses are trying to say not me, I didn’t do it, it couldn’t have been us. All the same no one should be pointing fingers. No one can say how or who did it. The cigarette I speculation, they can’t find a cigarette or match and say “yep this is it; this is what caused the fire.”
Oh, I also am not a smoker.
Just one more reason smoking stinks! Cigarette smokers are notorious for littering up our Earth with their butts and now it has likely caused a major mishap. Not only does it cause cancer, lung disease, heart disease, allergies, and the list goes on…but it is also dangerous due to the smokers’ lack of personal responsibility to throw their matches and butts away in a safe manner. I hope the person responsible will have to pay for all of the damages.
I’m curious why we need to know this, or we need to know that, beyond what the fire marshal has already stated.
There is no way to pin point a single ciggy butt found to a single individual, so all this ‘we need to know’ does nothing but feed the speculation.
I’ll tell you all this. I’ve known John Jennings for many years. He is an arsonist worst nightmare. If he says there are no indicators it was arson, you can take that to the bank.
Accidents happen. They are almost always preventable, but they do happen. There is not one of us that has had an accident, on any level, that on second thought we realize we cold have done something different. But still it is just that, an accident.
No one said the folks at the bike shop did it! I think the bike shop with javaun as spokesman, is coming off overly defensive and critical. And to say no bike shop clerk would smoke is just silly.
Everyone who is following the story knows there was a tattoo parlor, skateboard shop, nail salon, fitness center, etc in the plaza.
Anyone of them could have had an employee or customer flick a lit cigarette out the back door. As hot as its been and with the combo of dried brush under the wooden porches, and boxes outside, it was an accident waiting to happen. Preventable? yes, akin to driving drunk, not hardly.
PS I am NOT a smoker
also, why isn’t the media mentioning what businesses were open during the time of the fire?
I think what javaun was trying to express was that the news keeps mentioning the bike shop allowing for people to infer that the employees of the bike shop were smoking and responsible for the fire. Blackwater’s employees aren’t just clerks behind the counters they love cycling and aren’t smokers.
well then javaun , you find the smoker and hang them up…..
GEEZ
Must be great to be perfect. NOT I, NOT I, NOT I!!!!! NOT US! NOT US!
Calling all store clerk that sell bikes, none of you can smoke! Junk food is banned too! And those trips to Sonic for the root beer floats, no self respecting biker would put that stuff in their body!!
You are unreal..
There’s a difference between apathy and we aren’t perfect, and sometimes our mistakes have dire consequences, and sometimes we catch the mistake in time and fix them.
Vvtova said: “okay, being a cyclist and being a clerk at a bike shop are two different things. SOMEONE was smoking behind the building.“
You clearly don’t know bike shop employees. I’ve worked in several and been a customer in dozens more. They are cyclists, that’s why you work at a shop, because your life is riding bikes.
Vvtova said: “Why worry about blame?“
Because law-abiding people had their livelihoods and their dreams burned down, and that isn’t trivial. I like to think of it as “responsibility”, not “blame.“
Vvtova said: “No one did it on purpose, throwing lit cigarettes is dumb, but sometimes we do dumb things, without thinking of all possible dire consequenses.“
You mean we do dumb things like have a bunch of drinks, get behind the wheel of a car, and then kill a family 5 on the highway? Clearly, people don’t think about the consequences of doing dumb, dangerous things, and often innocent people are the victims. Most “accidents” are preventable when people follow common sense. If you don’t solve the problem, it happens again. I completely disagree with your apathy.
okay, being a cyclist and being a clerk at a bike shop are two different things. SOMEONE was smoking behind the building. Are the fire inspectors lying when they said there were multiple cig. butts out back?
The reason i was so curious about this and went there to look and talk was:
Having had a business with a similar layout, i can speak first hand about an incident at my plaza.
We take in frieght and toss the boxes out the back door for cut up later. The employees hang out the back door on their breaks smoking cigarettes. One day, we opened the door and our employee’s car was on fire, seems someone had thrown out a cigarette, it caught on the weeds against the building dried by the summer heat, spread to the boxes and poof. It happened, we saw it, we put it out, thank goodness we had water readily avaiable and saw it in time. We also had cement docks, not wooden ones like this plaza.
The car had the paint burned off the front, but because we had three smokers (including the car owner) he didn’t have any one person to blame. We purchased a butt can, AND never put boxes out the door again. We were lucky to have that chance, these folks were lucky no one died!
Why worry about blame? Or not I, not I, No one did it on purpose, throwing lit cigarettes is dumb, but sometimes we do dumb things, without thinking of all possible dire consequenses.
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