NORFOLK, Va. — Norfolk emergency officials and the U.S. Coast Guard were on the scene of a fire that broke out at the Little Creek Marina Monday morning.
Fire officials said the fire displaced nine adults, a child and two dogs.
According to the U.S. Coast Guard, Norfolk Fire & Rescue received their first report of the blaze at 1:19 a.m. The fire was under control around 2:55 a.m.
Officials confirmed the fire had spread to three boats in total, all of which sank. Two of those boats are underwater at the dock. Officials said the third boat floated just outside of the marina after the fire burned the ropes at the dock. Then, it sank.
Currently, they are all being monitored by the Department of Environmental Quality and the U.S. Coast Guard because they have all sunk. Officials said there are no reported injuries.
Tiya Clifton said she began to smell smoke while sitting on her apartment balcony by Little Creek Marina.
“A lot of popping and then huge clouds of smoke," she said. "It was huge, things were busting all over the place.”
She raced to get her phone to call 911 and then recorded a video of what happened.
“You could tell that people were screaming for the other people to get off the boats in the marina,” Clifton said.
Around the same time, Nicholas Czewicz, who lives on one of the boats docked, woke up to the sound of people pounding on his boat.
“I look behind me and I see a boat floating past me that’s on fire and my neighbor is on the backside of my boat trying to push it away from my boat,” Czewicz said.
Carrie Ann Robinson, the manager at Freedom Boat Club, said the several boats they rent out aren’t damaged. Though, she is concerned about the leaking fuel from one of the boats that’s spreading across the marina.
“You don’t want to see that fuel but it does happen,” Robinson said.
Coast Guard officials said gas and diesel are leaking from one of the boats that caught on fire. There are booms out to prevent it from spreading into waterways.
The Norfolk Fire Marshal's Office is investigating the cause of the fire. The U.S. Coast Guard is investigating the fuel spill.
Officials with the Coast Guard are also working on a plan to get the boats out of the water but there's no timeline on when they expect to retrieve them.