Red Cross assists Beech Island family after fire consumes home, land
BEECH ISLAND, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) - American Red Cross volunteers are assisting a family whose home on Forrest Drive was damaged by a fire on Wednesday.
Red Cross volunteers say are helping two people by providing financial assistance for needs such as food, clothing, shelter and other needed resources.
The fire was reported around 3:45 p.m. on Forrest Drive near 475 Old Jackson Highway, where it destroyed a house, a vehicle and five acres of land.
It all started with a leaf pile outside the home that’s occupied by a couple in their 70s.
The wife said she was burning leaves for fire safety, so the piles wouldn’t get too high.
She said she had a water hose on hand, and went inside to use the restroom. When she came back outside, she heard something on the roof.
The house was on fire, drawing a response from multiple agencies across Aiken County.
Nearby wildland and a vehicle also caught fire in the blaze that spread to at least five acres before crews contained it after about an hour.
There aren’t any fire hydrants on the road, so crews had to use tankers to get water to the flames.
Local agencies aid during ‘ICE Storm’ blitz in South Carolina
While enforcing traffic laws, officers completed 1,250 traffic stops for violations. Fifty of those stops required officers to deploy K-9s.
At 4 p.m., the fire was so bad that crews went into defensive mode. That’s when crews have little hope of extinguishing a blaze, so they focus on keeping it from spreading to other structures.
The Red Cross offered assistance to the couple, and church came by late Wednesday afternoon to do what they could.
The homeowners are 73 and 74, and the fire happened a day ahead of the husband’s birthday.
He’s optimistic that they’ll be able to recover.
“We have started over twice in this life together from nothing, and we’ll just have to do it again,” he said.
Tens of billions in Hurricane Helene aid to start by March 21
Congress set a deadline to hand out the money when it ed a $100 billion disaster relief package.
It’s been only six days since another fire seriously damaged a home in the same area.
That fire early March 6 injured one person in the 200 block of Daniel Street.
There’s usually an increase in house fires during winter as people try to keep their homes warm, but this season has been especially bad across the region – and the Jackson area in particular – even though right now it’s not especially chilly outside.
On Feb. 24, a house fire in Gloverville claimed the lives of two children, and a third later died of injuries from the blaze.
A couple of days earlier, the Orangeburg County Coroner’s Office says a 77-year-old man has died after a house fire.
And in mid-February, a 73-year-old woman was identified after a house fire in Jackson.
Copyright 2025 WRDW/WAGT. All rights reserved.
