When Lynn Wilson was told the house next door to him was on fire, he got out of his house, which is just yards away.
“Fire was coming from the attic and chimney,” he said. “I heard two popping sounds and an explosion.”
The fire broke out in the vacant house at 127 S. Adkin St. at about 7:47 p.m. Wednesday, said Woody Spencer, public information officer for Kinston Department of Public Safety.
City fire officials looked for a cause, but couldn’t find what started the fire, he said.
“The structure had no power,” Spencer said. “The cause is considered undetermined, but is a suspicious fire.”
The investigation is complete, he said.
Wilson said his two nephews were sitting on the porch of a house directly across the street from his house when they noticed smoke.
“They spotted the smoke,” Wilson said, “and told everybody to get out of the house because the house next door was on fire.”
The damaged house, owned by Neketa Lashay Burney since 2007, had been boarded up. So smoke was billowing out, but a fire was raging inside, Wilson said.
“It was too much for me,” said Brenda Gray, who lives on the other side of the street. “I had to go back home.”
Demetria Cannon, who lives in the same house with Gray, said she heard the popping noise, too. She said it sounded like someone was inside “knocking a board down.”
Cannon said she believes the house was set on fire “just like the other house,” she said as she pointed to a house on the corner of Adkin and King streets. That vacant house, with graffiti on the side facing Adkin, had burned a few months back.
She said the newly-burned house had been vacant for about two years.
“There’s too many houses that are not being taken care of,” she said. “And if it’s not taken care of, whoever did them two are going to get the rest of them.”
Cannon, who also lives next door to a vacant house, expressed concern about the safety of residents because of the fires.
“I’m afraid somebody’s going to get killed,” she said.
Margaret Fisher can be reached at 252-559-1082 or Margaret.Fisher@Kinston.com. Follow her on Twitter @MargaretFishr.