GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — Fire investigators are searching for the person they say deliberately set a Gwinnett County house on fire while six people were inside, five of them asleep.
Christopher Hammond had just gotten home from the gym and started cleaning up when the power died. He walked outside to find the garage glowing orange and popping where the power line ran into the house.
“There’s no way you could put it out,” Hammond said.
He turned around and went back in after his roommates. The power was gone, smoke had already reached the rooms at the top of the stairs, and the only way through was to stay low.
“It was like the fire was right above our heads,” Hammond said. “We only had like a second or two to react.”
He estimates the whole thing took less than a minute.
“We did what we did in about 50 to 60 seconds to wake everybody up, get them out and leave the house,” he said.
The call came in at 5:14 a.m. on Aug. 5, according to Gwinnett County Fire and Emergency Services. Firefighters reached the house on Camp Perrin Road NE eight minutes later and found it burning end to end, and part of it fell in while they were fighting the fire. Everyone was already out on the lawn. Two cars burned in the driveway.
“We thought it was a car at first that caught fire,” Hammond said. “We didn’t know that somebody had did this deliberately.”
The video shows a man light something, drop it at the garage door, walk off and come back to spray the flames.
Investigators later determined the cause was intentional. The video is too dark to make out a face, and Hammond said nobody in the house was in a fight with anyone.
“Who would want to try to harm us? Who would do this to us?” Hammond said. “There’s six people in the house sleep.”
All six adults lost what they owned. The American Red Cross helped them find somewhere to sleep, and Hammond is renting a hotel room until he finds a permanent place. The people he lived with have scattered to relatives.
“Everything that we had. You name it,” Hammond said. “Televisions, washers, dryers, refrigerators, clothes, everything that comes with the modern house.”
A GoFundMe has been set up to help Hammond replace what he lost.
Anyone who recognizes the man in the video can call the Gwinnett Fire Investigation Section at 678-518-4890 or the Georgia Arson Control Hotline at 1-800-282-5804. Georgia Arson Control is offering up to $10,000 for information that leads to an arrest and conviction.
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