Pedro Rodriguez is a local hero.
When the Sterling Park resident pulled into his East Gordon Street home on the morning of Wednesday, Nov. 16, he noticed a garbage truck parked in the middle of the street and smoke coming from his neighbor’s house, a single-family home at 303 East Gordon Street.
"The garbage men were pointing to the house," he said. "There was smoke pouring from the roof. No flames though."
Rodriguez ran across the street to make sure his neighbors were out of the burning house while the garbage collectors called 9-1-1.
"I touched the front door. It was hot," he said. "So I ran around the back."
Rodriguez opened a kitchen window to call for his neighbors. He could see flames in the kitchen, through the thick, black smoke that poured through the window.
Rodriguez heard the fire alarm.
"It was so loud," he said. "I knew if anyone was asleep in there, they were up now."
WITHIN MINUTES Loudoun County, Sterling and Fairfax County Fire, Rescue and Emergency Management trucks lined East Gordon Street.
Rodriguez said the fire and rescue workers used large hoses to put the fire out in 10 to 15 minutes.
"They had that fire out in no time," he said.
The cause of fire remains under investigation, said Mary Maguire, spokesperson for Loudoun County Fire, Rescue and Emergency Management. The estimated cost of damages is $300,000.
"It was pretty smoked up in there," Rodriguez said.
THE SINGLE-FAMILY home is now boarded up with sheets of plywood. Burned mattresses and debris cover the front lawn.
There was no one home at the time of the fire, but eight people were forced to move out as a result of it.
"I’m not sure if they were all related," Maguire said.
Loudoun County After the Fire Program and the American Red Cross provided assistance to the eight people displaced from the fire, Maguire said.