Brentwood firefighters work under the dining room floor of a Montclair home to find the source of the fire.

Updated 10:45 a.m. Thursday
Brentwood Home Page news reports
While no active weather watches or warnings cover our area at the moment, the Thursday forecast does call for thunderstorms throughout the afternoon, beginning around noon and lasting throughout the evening.

The storms that rolled through late Wednesday night and early this morning left Brentwood alone to a large degree.

“We came out of last night in pretty good shape.  We had a few trees down around town, including on Sunset Road near the Governor’s Club and on Wilson Pike near Inglehame/Smith Park,” assistant city manager Kirk Bednar reported this morning. “Also a few traffic signals went out.  Public Works had several guys in during the night and all the trees were cleared from the roads and signals fixed by this morning’s rush hour.  The guys will be back out today cleaning the remaining the tree debris.”

Brentwood Fire & Rescue responded to the department’s second home fire this week, this time in the Montclair subdivision. The fire occurred at approximately 12:25 a.m. at 1741 Richbourg Park Drive. 

When fire crews arrived six minutes after being dispatched, heavy smoke conditions were encountered and the integrity of the first floor had already been compromised by the fire.  A preliminary investigation indicates that an electrical problem, possibly related to a lightning strike, is the likely source of the fire which ignited in the crawl space.  Several access points were opened into the crawl space by way of vents, access doors, and an HVAC opening in the foundation. 

Ultimately a section of dining room flooring had to be removed to get to the seat of the fire, assistant Fire Chief Brian Goss reported this morning. A total of 19 people responded.

“Our firefighters did a great job in locating a very difficult fire to find and confining it to the crawl space.  Several floor joists were burned away and there is significant damage to the plumbing and electrical systems.  Initial damage estimates would be in the range of $50,000 loss” he said.

Looking ahead, “today appears to be the last day of unsettled weather before we get into an extended dry and hot spell, which means the Water Department will likely start to see the beginning of its summer demand peak by early next week,” Bednar said.