Fire destroys Loris home

By DEUCE NIVEN

tribdeuce@tabor-loris.com

     Fire heavily damaged a Loris home Thursday afternoon, claiming a small structure behind it and leaving a neighbor’s home with “cosmetic” damage, Loris Fire Chief Jerry Hardee said.

     “When we got the call and I started heading this way there was heavy black smoke pouring,” Hardee said.

     With support from Horry County Fire Rescue the manpower and equipment response was strong, and the fire that was widely spread throughout the McQueen Street home was largely knocked down in about a half hour.

     Firefighters were on the scene much longer, in part to make sure no hot spots were left to rekindle later.

     “We’ll have an investigation to try to figure out what started it,” Hardee said.

     Ann Ward, the next door neighbor, said the fire was large when she was alerted to the flames.

     “Fire was shooting up, it was high, 30 or 40 feet,” Ward said.

     She said several houses on the block between Railroad and Broad streets, including hers and the one next door owned by Loris Mayor Todd Harrelson, were quite old and built at about the same time many decades ago.

     “Thank goodness we bricked ours,” Ward said of her home. Some plastic trim on the side of her house facing Harrelson’s, and some vinyl siding on her carport behind the house, were melted by the heat of the fire.

     Vinyl siding on the Harrelson house, in sections not destroyed by fire, was melted. Fire did not breach the roof, though personnel on the Loris Fire Department ladder truck took a look from on high to be sure.

     Hardee said two of Harrelson’s sons live in the home which was once owned by the mayor’s father. It appeared that no one was home at the time of the fire, Hardee said.

     Look for more on this story in the next Tabor-Loris Tribune in print and online.