NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — An investigation is underway to find the cause of a two-alarm fire in Newport News.
The fire broke out at a vacant building that once housed St. James Fellowship Church of God. It happened at the corner of 44th Street and Orcutt Avenue just after 4:30 Sunday afternoon.
Neighbors call it a chaotic scene.
"Seen this black smoke go across the horizon right here," neighbor Don Diegoalston described. "The fire was like higher than the trees.”
Newport News Battalion Fire Chief David Harper said it took crews about an hour to get the fire under control.
Harper said no injuries were reported. Two people from a neighboring home are displaced.
“We had to displace one set of people from one house. It was a mother and son, and they had somewhere to go," Harper said.
Delores Jones lives right next door to the vacant church. She arrived home to find fire and police vehicles filling her street.
“I saw the smoke... I was hoping it wasn’t my house," she said.
Her home was partially damaged by the heat.
“All the siding on that one side melted," Jones described.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation.