ROCKINGHAM — Volunteers with the East Rockingham Fire Department responded to yet another fire at a vacant home Friday morning.
The department was dispatched to 156 Pence Street to a fire at an unoccupied mobile home, according to Chief Bill Bayless.
He said the fire appears to have started in the kitchen area and crews were able to extinguish it before it spread too far.
The cause of the fire has been deemed suspicious and is under investigation by the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office, Bayless said.
The department has responded to fires at several vacant homes this year.
On May 24, a mobile home on Sixth Street Safie was a total loss, while a small fire was started in the basement of a house on School Street. ERFD responded again to the latter location on June 7.
Another abandoned home on Mill Road finally burned July 11 after the department responded for a third time. A small hole was burned in the floor on May 29 and a mattress that had been brought into the house was burned June 27.
On July 19, the department was called to a blaze at a vacant home on Central Avenue, behind Place of Grace.
Several days earlier, the Rockingham Fire Department led the fight against flames at the office of the former Sara Lee plant on Mill Road.
Bayless said most of the calls the department has responded to recently have been in reference to people burning leaves too close to their homes.
