Fire claims barn, spares residents
By Steve Herring
Published in News on November 26, 2016 5:52 PM
News-Argus/SETH COMBS
A fireman from the Little River Fire Department surveys the aftermath of a barn fire at 1016 N.C. 581 Saturday. The crews used fire retardant foam to exstinguish the flames.
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News-Argus/SETH COMBS
Theresa Reese, right, and Harley Reese, middle, 11, discuss the possible whereabouts of Jonathan Reese and Melissa Shoman with family friend Desiree Faucette after authorities where unable to find them in the burned barn at 1016 NC- 581 Saturday.
A family's tears of grief turned to tears of joy early Saturday afternoon after learning that their loved ones had not been in an old tobacco barn consumed by fire.
"We have torn the building completely apart, and we did not find anybody in there at all," Mike Aycock, assistant chief for the Little River Fire Department said as family members hugged one another.
Firefighters walked around the property and also went inside a nearby vacant house.
Jonathan Reese and Melissa Shoman, who were at first thought to have been in the barn at the time of the fire, turned up hours later unharmed.
As of press time the cause of the barn fire near 1016 N.C. 581 had not been determined.
Reese's father, Thomas, said everything had been fine earlier that morning.
"They were just out there in the barn cleaning," he said. "I was over there at 7:30. I took them some sandwiches and some cake. They were both fine."
A motorist on N.C. 581 saw the flames above the trees and called 911, Aycock said.
The call came in at 10:47 a.m. as a tobacco barn fire and firefighters arrived within 10 minutes.
"Delbert Edwards, who is the chief of Thoroughfare Fire Department down in the southern part of Wayne County, just happened to be passing by and when he heard on his radio that it was possibly two people entrapped, he stopped and investigated and called back on the radio and told us there were two people possibly involved," Aycock said.
"When we have something like this we call more than one department," Aycock said. "Little River was called as the main department. Nahunta and Rosewood were also called, and they both responded.
"It was an old tobacco barn that they have gone in and done some remodeling. Actually, there was a second floor to it. But it was fully involved when we got here. We made an exterior attack. We did not try to go inside; it was pretty much destroyed when we got here," he said.
It was an old tobacco barn like we used to hand tobacco in, but like I said they had gone in and remodeled and actually put a second floor."
For a while, N.C. 581 was blocked between Buck Swamp Road and Claridge Nursery Road because of fire trucks needing access to and from the scene, Aycock said.
Wayne County Sheriff Larry Pierce later said deputies had since spoken with Ms. Shoman. She said she and Reese had lit a wood heater and then left for a while.