Springfield Fire Rescue Division firefighters went to 526 W. Pleasant St. first and worked to put out a van on fire. Heat radiated from the van and burned the siding on the home at that address.
“I looked out the door and my whole van was torched,” resident Ebony Darden said.
She said she awoke to the sound of fire, called 9-1-1 and rushed outside of the home with her children.
“My baby was screaming, crying,” she said. “They were all scared. It was awful.”
The family is staying at Darden’s brother’s home and was using his car Thursday, but she said she doesn’t know what they are going to do moving forward.
“It is just a whole lot I’m going through here lately,” She said. “This is something that tops it.”
As crews worked to extinguish the blaze, another car started flaming just down the street at 432 W. Pleasant St.
“Huge flames; the windows were exploding,” Angela Anderson, who lives between the two homes, said. “You heard big pops and everything like that.”
The car belonged to a Springfield man who was staying with a friend. The car was a total loss.
“My husband I were just like ‘praise the lord’ that we were protected from everything that went on, because we are right in the center of everything,” Anderson said.
As police were investigating the scene for arson Thursday morning, a man walked up and began talking them. Officers said he appeared to be intoxicated and had a pistol showing, according to a Springfield Police Division report.
Police detained the man and found he had a starter’s pistol, some of the prescription medicine Xanax, two cell phones and a digital camera, according to Lt. Jeff Meyer.
Police believe the man broke into at least three vehicles and set the fires to destroy evidence.
The man is charged with the drug possession and is in Clark County Jail. Police are awaiting DNA lab results before filing other charges.
On the north side of town, the Moorefield Twp. Fire Department responded a house fire at 3945 Tacoma St. just after 2 a.m., according to Assistant Fire Chief Rich Hughes.
“We found the house well-involved with flames already shooting out the roof of the house,” he said.
All the people living at the home were able to make it out safely, including the family pet, because smoke detectors woke them, Hughes said.
“In this situation, just a few more minutes probably would have made a difference of them getting out the house safely and them not making it out the house,” he said.
The state fire marshal’s office helped investigate the house fire Thursday, but Hughes said the damage was so extensive the cause will most likely remain undetermined.
Hughes said the home is a total loss and damages will most likely exceed $100,000.
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