Thursday evening, July 8 just before 9 PM, units responded to the report of a structure fire at 6850 West Virginia Avenue on the city's northside. Several neighbors near the address had called 9-1-1 and reported that smoke and flames could be seen coming out of a front window of the home. Engine 7 arrived on scene and promptly indicated that a small amount of flame could be seen from an area that would soon be determined as the living room. While approaching the home with their charged line, bystanders along the fireground began exclaiming to Engine 7's crew that the adult male occupant was already out of the house, having jumped through a window to escape the advancing heat and smoke, and could now be found somewhere in the back yard. With other units arriving on scene, the fire was easily extinguished in less than 5 minutes: the victim, too, was promptly located and transported to Shands by Rescue 36 with life threatening injuries. As the investigation into cause and point of origin began at the scene, word came back to the fireground that the victim had died. That tragic news resulted in the dispatch and arrival of investigators from other agencies, all actively engaged in making the determination as to the cause of the blaze. Some of the information gathered at the scene in the early aftermath indicated that a working smoke detector was not present in the home, that the fire did indeed originate in the living room, and damages to the interior and exterior of the home totaled more than $50,000.
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