Victims in Campbell County house fire identified

By Sarah Watson

Published: April 27, 2008

Campbell County authorities released Sunday the names of two people killed in a Saturday morning house fire.

Joseph Toms, 55, and Linda Ruth Toms, 58, lived in the 600 block of Leewood Road, just off Dearing Ford Road in Lynch Station.

Capt. L.T. Guthrie, with the Campbell County Sheriff’s Office, said investigators will be at the house today to start searching for the fire’s cause.

“Looking at it (Saturday,) there’s really no point of origin that jumps out at you just looking at it,” Guthrie said.

Also killed in the fire was the couple’s dog, Gizmo, which Guthrie described as a shih tzu.

Autopsies have yet to be performed, but Guthrie said he was “sure (the deaths were) related to the fire.”

Firefighters responded to a 911 call at 7 a.m. Saturday morning and found the home fully engulfed. Neighbors told the News & Advance that the only thing identifying the structure in the midst of the inferno as a house was the chimney, which later fell.

The fire burned the home to the ground, leaving just the brick foundation and a deck.

Guthrie said he though the fire started between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. and could have been burning inside the home for some time before intensifying once a hole opened, allowing more air to enter and fuel the flames.

“I’ve really never seen a house burned up like this one. It just burned completely up,” Guthrie said Saturday.