VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) – What happened on Hummingbird Lane in Virginia Beach Saturday night could have been a disaster.
Video shot by Jonathan Owens proves that.
Owens alerted residents to one of the three homes impacted by a wind-driven, fast-moving fire.
Luckily no one was injured, though the Virginia Beach Fire Department told us five adults, five children, and three dogs were displaced by the fire, which remains under investigation.
Neighbor Jason Daniels says he saw the fire just after it started, and he says the fire was coming from a side yard where there was a pick-up truck.
“I saw it while I was sitting in my house. It was really bright. … As I ran by the house, I noticed where the fire was coming from. The fire was coming from that pickup truck right there,” Daniels said pointing to the burned-out shell of a pick-up truck.”
Daniels went knocking on Maggie Hayden’s door.
“I immediately ran to this house,” Daniels said. “I beat on the door like nobody’s business, and I said ‘Hey, you all need to get out of there. The house is on fire.”
Daniels response was so quick, Hayden said no one in the house inhaled any smoke, to which she replied that “we are so thankful for him. … I have hugged him several times and said thank you for saving our lives, basically.”
Daniels also ran into the other home on fire. It is the home a woman named Rebecca owns, but she refused to confirm her last name, and refused to give us any comment on the record.
Daniels told us.
“I ran in there, and they have a son who has a disability,” Daniels said. “I beat on every door, and I couldn’t find him.”
Daniels couldn’t find him because he was asleep in the bedroom, and apparently had headphones on. He told us a firefighter would bring him out.
Virginia Beach Fire gave basic information on response time, but nothing much more than that because the case is under investigation, and it is a complicated one that needs sorting out.
There is also bad blood in the neighborhood with the houses impacted, which is complicating the investigation.
Jonathan Owens, who shot amazing video, alerted the family whose house was not damaged as badly getting out a mother, two children and three dogs,
“It wasn’t the fire so much as it was the heat from the flames. It was so hot it melted away the siding.”
Owens 11-year-old son Judah was also at the scene.
“I’m very proud of my dad,” Judah Owens said. … “The explosions were pretty loud. It sounded like fireworks and looked like them too.”
Fire investigators continue investigating to figure out what exactly happened.
