Cabell Street neighbors, friends remember fire victim

The front porch of 111 Cabell St. was often where James Edward Bayes could be found, chatting with anyone who would pause long enough.

That porch was reduced to ash in a blaze Tuesday evening that killed the 66-year-old, Cabell Street’s unofficial greeter and mechanic.

“If he was sitting on the porch, he’d always say something to people that came by,” said neighbor Lucas Sandidge. “You could always count him being on the porch, greeting you and cracking a joke.”

Investigators combed through the wreckage of the 1893 two-story, wood-sided house that Bayes had rented for years looking for clues as to what sparked the blaze.

The cause and point of origin is not yet known, but Lynchburg Fire Marshal Greg Wormser said it appears to be an accident that started at the front of the house.

Firefighters responded to the call within six minutes, faster than the city’s average response time, but it wasn’t fast enough to save Bayes, Wormser said.

His body was found in the back right corner of the house, in the kitchen area, Wormser said. There was no back door to the house and Bayes, for some reason, was unable to jump from a window.

The fire consumed the house quickly, fueled by the piles of firewood on the porch used to heat the house, and the flammable liquids Bayes kept on hand for heaters and his hobby of repairing engines.

“That was one of the biggest challenges to his escape and our entry,” Wormser said.

The house had a balloon frame construction, which leaves few roadblocks to the spread of fire inside the walls, allowing it to rapidly spread to other rooms and floors. The fire chewed through the supports for the roof and second floor, causing parts of both to collapse onto the first floor.

With that type of construction, Wormser said, one or two extra minutes of response time wouldn’t have made a difference in the outcome.

Wormser said investigators might never know if the house had functioning smoke detectors due to the extensive damage.

The blaze also damaged the roof and a window of a neighboring house. Firefighters used a ladder truck Wednesday to climb onto the roof of that house and cover the damage with plastic until the homeowner could get it properly repaired.

The engine unit that would have been the first dispatched to the blaze was not in service Tuesday night due to a staffing shortage, said Lynchburg Fire Chief Brad Ferguson.

Engine 4 was taken out of service when one of its crew called in sick and the department was unable to cover that employee’s shift. Certain personnel standards must be met to keep an engine in service, Ferguson said.

“It doesn’t happen very often,” Ferguson said. “We do the best we can with what we’ve got.”

The fire department has 12 vacancies that have not been filled due to budget constraints, Ferguson said. The department is using eight part-time employees to cover the gaps created by those vacancies.

On fires such as this, it is standard to call out the three closest engine units to the scene, which normally are Station 4 on Birch Street, Station 1 on Clay Street and Station 6 at Miller Park.

Station 4, located off Bedford Avenue, is 1.8 miles from the scene.

Station 1 would be 1.3 miles from scene of the Cabell Street fire if the D Street bridge were open, but diverting around the closed bridge puts it 2.2 miles away.

The closed D Street bridge lengthened the response time slightly for Engine 1, but firefighters still arrived in 6 minutes, below the 7.6-minute average response time in the city.

“Resources did not get to the house as quickly as they could have,” Wormser said. “There’s no way to say that if that truck was in service that he would have been rescued. Often times Station 1 can get here first.”

Wormser said the same scenario could happen if Station 1 was at training, on another call or out for repairs.

John Langhorne heard the call for the blaze over his scanner and drove to Cabell Street, worried that it could be the home of Bayes, his longtime coworker and friend.

Because the road was blocked, he didn’t know for sure that it was Bayes’ home that burned until he returned to Cabell Street early Wednesday.

Langhorne worked with Bayes during his almost 30 years with the city as a garbage truck driver. He said Bayes retired several years ago due to health problems.

“He was a good guy,” Langhorne said.

Sandidge said he often would stop by Bayes’ house to borrow a lawn mower or parts and tools to fix his car. As a child, he would even bring his bike over if its chain or tires needed repair.

“He was actually known as one of five guys in the neighborhood who worked on cars,” Sandidge said.

The last fatal fire in the city was in October 2009 when a woman who lived on Campbell Avenue died in a blaze caused by an open flame around an oxygen tank.

In the past five years, the city has had seven fatal fires, killing nine people.

Staff reporter Alicia Petska contributed to this report.