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May 2014, The Journal’s Colonial Beach Summer Guide
Fighting that fire with a fury of their own Carla Rollins Gutridge Usually, when a firefighter responds to a structure-fire call, it’s for a building they’ve never entered before. Most of the homes and other buildings they risk their own lives to save belong to someone else and have no personal attachment to them. This was definitely not the case when the pager tones sounded shortly after 4:00 a.m. on Sunday, January 5, 2014, to respond to 315 Douglas Ave. in Colonial Beach. Being the small town that it is, most anyone with a scanner in the Colonial Beach area recognized that address as the elementary school campus. Many of the responding fire and rescue personnel had either attended school there, worked there in some capacity, or had children still enrolled there. Their first thoughts while in route to the scene must’ve been to hope that is was a false alarm, or something minor. Much to their dismay, the building soon became fully engulfed with flames, and they knew that it would be a firefight like no other. So many memories, so much history lived within those walls. And now those walls were holding in the flames and smoke as long as they could, but were soon forced to submit to the fire’s fury.
Many, many firefighters fought that blaze, but a problem with water supplies and an impending roof collapse of the over 100-year-old building forced those fighting the fire from inside to evacuate the beloved building for their own safety. When asked what ran through her mind as she battled the blaze inside her old elementary school building, 23-year-old lone female firefighter inside the burning building, Jamie Gutridge Conn, replied, “It was so dark and smoky in there; I could barely make out where the classroom entrances were located.” With adrenaline levels surely off the charts, those firefighters inside the inferno had no choice but to evacuate the building when Command gave the order to do so. The roof was in danger of collapsing, and they had done all they could from inside to save the interior of that building loved by so many. As of the time of this printing in May 2014, the cause of the fire had not yet been released, and the investigation was ongoing. It is uncertain whether it was an act of arson, or accidental. Rumors of arson soon spread throughout the town, but any evidence of such has yet to be reported to the public. If it was, indeed, an act of arson, there is a special place here on Earth for the arsonist(s) if caught and convicted. And if it
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A Colonial Beach landmark - the 100-year-old brick building known to many longtime residents as the old high school - at the elementary school campus had burned beyond repair on Jan. 5. was arson, and those responsible are never caught and/or convicted, there is a still a
special place somewhere else waiting for them in the end.