Virginia Beach, Va. - Virginia Beach Police and emergency officials responded to a call of a fire on a float Saturday evening.
The float belonged to Princess Anne Farms. Officials said the fire was caused by a generator on the float which quickly spread to the hay and ignited the float. Chief Wayne Richardson of the Oceana
Volunteer Fire Department says the generator was in a wooden box when it caught fire. He says some how fuel leaked causing the flames to spread when the generator was pulled off of the truck and onto the pavement.
"It enabled the fire to go from where it was to the float that was right behind it and the float that was behind it was full of combustible material," said Chief Richardson.
The float was apart of the TowneBank Holiday Parade that was held at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront. The parade started at 5:30PM.
Chief Richardson and nine other volunteers had their own role in the parade and just so happened to be a block or so in front of the float that caught fire.
"Matter of fact, I tried to get further up ahead and they said no you're stuck. We were very fortunate that we ended up where we did," explained Richardson.
The chief says their volunteers train to fight fires, but typically play more of a support role to city firefighters. But, on Saturday night, they were first on scene. And, volunteers like Steven Kennedy says the group pulled it off without a hitch.
"I grabbed an extinguisher off our support truck," Kennedy explained. "My first thought was to, ya know, get an initial attack on the fire and when I ran up on the fire I saw the back if the truck burning so my initial thought was to save the truck from catching fire."
The volunteers were able to knock the fire down within minutes. No one was seriously injured during this incident.
