By SHELLEY TERRY - Staff Writer - sterry@starbeacon.com
ASHTABULA — An Ashtabula Harbor family lost two vehicles, a trailer and a motorcycle in a garage fire Friday afternoon.
Firefighters were called at about 2:15 p.m. to 1648 W. Seventh St. for a garage fire.
When they arrived, firefighters discovered Vaughn and Hank Graff’s brick garage fully engulfed in flames, the vinyl siding curling on the back of their two-story home and two vehicles parked in the driveway on fire.
“I was upstairs and I heard an explosion,” Vaughn Graff said. “My husband had just finished mowing lawn.”
Graff said her husband used his cell phone to call 911.
No one was injured.
Neighbor Stephen Lanham said the garage blew up.
“As soon as I heard it, I came outside,” he said. “Smoke was in the air and flames shot up in the sky.”
Neighbor Debra Johnson said, “It made a really big bang.”
Rob Nicholson said he took his 3-year-old child and ran out of his nearby house because he didn’t know what was going to happen next.
“I saw that the brick garage was on fire,” he said. “Then I saw there was a car on fire.”
Parking fire trucks on West Seventh and West Eighth streets, city firefighters quickly extinguished the blaze.
As the contents of the garage smoldered, Lanham said he believed smoke from the blaze would be in the air for quite some time.
