Fire destroys Shipman house; dog dies

Media General News Service
Published: June 5, 2008

LOVINGSTON - A fire Wednesday morning reduced a Shipman home to “powder,” authorities said.

Dispatchers received the call at 8:16 a.m., and the Faber Volunteer Fire Department was on the scene at 3886 Wheelers Cove Road in Shipman within 20 minutes.

“When I got up there, the heat was so intense I could feel it through the windows and the air conditioning,” Nelson County Emergency Services Coordinator Ray Uttaro said.

Uttaro said the home was engulfed in flames when he arrived around 8:30 a.m.

Authorities said a mother and her son were at home when the fire started near a hot-water heater. Both escaped injury, but a dog was killed, Uttaro said.

A third person, Don Stavor, a member of the Lovingston Volunteer Fire Department, was not at the home located off Starvale and Dutch Creek lanes.

“The house is nothing but powder,” Uttaro said. “There is not a piece of wood left in it.”

Uttaro said crews battled intermittent explosions while extinguishing the fire because of gunpowder and ammunition inside the residence.

Crews also worked to keep winds from blowing the fire into the wooded area around the house.

A car, pick-up truck and a Jeep were destroyed. Two old fire trucks, at least one an antique, were also damaged, Uttaro said.

Crews left the scene around 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday.

Fire departments from Faber, Lovingston, Piney River and North Garden responded to the scene while departments from Amherst, Gladstone, Monelison and Scottsville were called in to cover calls in Nelson.

The Red Cross is assisting the family, and Uttaro said Stavor is asking that people who wish to make donations to the family donate blood to Virginia Blood Services in Charlottesville. Find them on the Web at http://www.vablood.org or at 2401 Hydraulic Road, 979-2170.