Fire destroys Amherst home

Monelison Volunteer Fire Department member Steve Owen (foreground) helps pull a hose closer to a fire at a Woodrow Avenue home in Monroe on Tuesday. Fire officials say the home is a complete loss, but the couple inside was not injured.

By: Dave Thompson | Lynchburg News and Advance
Published: April 16, 2008

A Tuesday morning fire left an Amherst County couple homeless.

Emergency dispatchers received the call at 10:03 a.m. and responded to a single-story, wood-frame house on Woodrow Avenue in Monroe, according to Amherst County Public Safety Director Gary Roakes.

Firefighters from the Monelison Volunteer Fire Department and Amherst Fire Department responded to the scene, the first arriving at 10:16 a.m.

Roakes said the fire was under control within about 35 minutes, but the fire caused enough damage to call the house a total loss.

“The firefighters did a really good job, as far as containing the fire to the front part of the house,” he said, but given the age of the house and the extent of the smoke damage, the house was not salvageable.

Neither of the occupants was hurt, and Roakes added that no firefighters were injured fighting the blaze.

Authorities would not release the occupants’ names.

The fire’s cause is still unknown, Roakes said, but it appeared, given the location of the fire, that it started outside the building, near the front porch.

Roakes said the residents are staying with family. They did not have fire insurance on the destroyed building, he said, and he did not have an estimate on the damages.

The Historic Virginia Chapter of the American Red Cross is assisting the couple with food and necessities.