“I absolutely have not seen anything like this,” said Cook, who lives across the street from the tire center. “I mean this is horrendous.”

 

Cook’s home is better off than his neighbor’s.  The sheer heat of the blaze across the street was enough to melt the siding.

 

“It was so hot over here,” Cook said. “I mean it was hot here, but my neighbor’s house was hotter.”

 

Nearby residents were asked to evacuate, but some, like Cook, stayed behind to save their homes.

 

“I hosed my house down and was trying to keep it cool,” he said. “If it came to the point where absolutely that was the last thing then I would have left, but I won’t leave it unless I have to.”

 

Cook’s neighbor had to run inside to put on a sweatshirt to keep her arms from burning as they soaked their houses. 

 

“It looked like chaos, but they did a very good job,” Cook said.  The key in fighting the fire quickly was teamwork; both emergency crews and residents worked for hours. 

 

“I think the fact that somebody called it in pretty quickly saved the neighborhood from some further destruction,” Bedford County Emergency Services Director Dave Cubbison added.

 

A small fire rekindled overnight.

 

“I was pretty much awake all night long wondering what was going to happen,” Cook said. “And it did (rekindle), but they took care of it.”

 

Car after car drove by Thursday, each one slowing down to scope out the damage.

 

“This incident that occurred yesterday in Everett is unusual,” Cubbison said. “You hear about them.  Any place that you have large quantities of anything… something can happen.”

 

Witnesses said it was a contained wood burn on the property that somehow sparked the tire fire. Investigators have not yet confirmed the cause.