Petworth

An eye witness sheds some light on the fire at the Bodega at Warder and Rock Creek Church Road:

“Now, the fire was really strange. It started early in the morning, like around 2:30-3:00am. The thing is, it was really, really quiet. My bedroom window looks directly onto the store and I heard only a tiny bit of crackling. My dog forced me out of the bed by continuously growling at the window. When I peaked through the window the flames were already at least ten feet high into the sky. There was nobody outside.

I called 911. My neighbors began to pour out of their houses. They too had called for emergency assistance. The fire department arrived within minutes. But, the bars made it very difficult for them to tame the fire in a timely fashion. Eventually, the store operator came out of the building and so to did the people that live in the houses adjacent to the store. Other than a fireman that burned his hand while trying to disengage the bars, nobody was harmed.

But, I do have a few questions. First, is it common for an assistant police chief to visit the fire sight. You’ll notice that I caught a shot of her assessing the site a day or two after the blaze. Second, are fires of this size quiet? Shouldn’t there have been a smell or a popped circuit breaker, if the fire was cause by an electrical malfunction?

Okay….I think I’ve gone on long enough. I hope that my two cents on the subject have shed some light on the situation.”

More incredible photos after the jump. (more…)

The City Paper tipped me off to this fire but they were thin on details so I did some investigating on my own. I cruised by yesterday and talked to a bunch of neighbors to see if I could piece together what happened. There are some facts and some speculation. First the facts. This fire took place late Friday evening (technically Saturday morning at around 2:30am). It took the fire department over an hour to get in because they had to file away the metal bars that surround the store. The store is pretty much a total loss.

Speculation. It appears that the owners lease the store so it wouldn’t make sense that the owners started it on their own. There has been trouble in this store in the past (most recently someone was chased inside and shot around a year and a half ago). So there was some speculation that it could have been set by some unsavory characters. That doesn’t seem likely as an eyewitness told me it appeared the fire was coming from the inside and not the outside. Additionally I’m told there were a number of old electrical coolers that could have malfunctioned so it seem quite possible it was simply an electrical fire.

I’m thankful that noone was injured. I’m supposed to get some photos of the fire in action and I’ll post when I get them. If you have any photos of the fire in action please send to me. I hope the store was properly insured so that they can rebuild soon. I guess I’m a little thin on details too…