College student warns North Charleston neighbors as house fires spread; 4 homes burn

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) — Crews battled a fire in North Charleston Wednesday afternoon that spread to four homes in a subdivision on Sumters Run. 

The North Charleston Fire Department said four homes caught fire and two were destroyed due to the blaze. 

Neighbors in the River Chase subdivision described what happened when they discovered the first home on fire. The fire began in one home before spreading to three other houses in the neighborhood. Two of the four homes the fire engulfed are completely destroyed neighbors said. 

Thanks to a 20-year-old Clemson student who returned home from the university on Tuesday, no injuries were reported. The fire department says two cats and dogs are still unaccounted for. 

Hunter Calvert was in his family hot tub next door when he heard a neighbor yell that there was a fire next door. Calvert then jumped the fence of the home to warn the people inside of the fire. 

“So I ran in the house to tell my mom to call 911, and then I jumped the fence and ran over there. There was a girl in the street. I asked her if anyone was inside and she said there was like ten people in there,” Calvert said. “So I ran around The back of the house and kind of broke into the door to get them out. Everyone in there didn’t really realize it was on fire, so it took them kind of a while to get up. I think they were sleeping or something.”

North Charleston Fire is still investigating the cause of the fire.

Calvert’s father told News 2 that he was not surprised the fire happened. He said neighbors have been burning various items in their backyards, and he and other neighbors have been contacting the fire department. 

“For weeks, we’ve been calling the fire department and sheriff’s department. They were burning carpets,” said Carl Calvert. “They were burning household goods, mattresses, and they would come in, and they would put the fire out. Fire department wouldn’t do too much. My wife talked to the fire department and told them that they had no running water. They were burning in the back.”

The fire spread next door to Jake Wexler’s house, destroying Wexler and his wife’s home. The couple have a few animals in their home and are still missing one after the fire.

“She was frantic, running through the house, trying to gather up our cats. We got two out of three of them, and we don’t know where the third one is right now,” Wexler said. 

Wexler explained that the people who live in the home where the fire started have been open-burning in their backyard for weeks, and neighbors have called the fire department numerous times. 

“They’ve been open burning backyard in the backyard. Just over the last two weeks there were three fires that were sent in the front yard. We called the fire department three times, at least three times, letting them know about these violations and hoping that they would come to clean it up, and they did absolutely nothing about it.” Wexler said.

“I feel like I was cheated. I feel like I was ignored. And all of this could’ve been avoided,” another neighbor said.

It took firefighters a little over an hour to get the flames under control. When asked about neighbor concerns, North Charleston Fire said they would have to check their call reports.

“I’m not really quite sure about the call history dealing with the house. That would be something that we would have to actually look into, you know, through our reports and things like that. I really don’t have anything outside of that to really add,” said Christan Rainey, deputy chief for North Charleston Fire. 

Dorchester County officials said the home the fire started in was condemned as uninhabitable and was not supposed to be occupied.