MARBLE HILL FAMILY LOSES HOME AFTER HEATER BLAST

Stacy Sitze and her uncle, David Fox, watched as their house burned Saturday. Four people were inside the house when a gas heater exploded, but no one was injured.

MARBLE HILL -- An explosion Saturday morning rocked nearby houses and set fire to a Marble Hill home.

The house, owned by David Fox, was destroyed, but two sheds on the property were saved.

No one was seriously injured by the blast, though Fox received some minor cuts while trying to escape from the burning house. The house sits four miles east of Marble Hill along state Highway 34.

Fox, his sister, Mabel White, his niece, Stacy Sitze, and her fiance, Eric Carlson, were inside the house just before the explosion about 10:45.

Authorities suspect a leaking gas line connected to a heater caused the explosion.

Flames engulfed the house before volunteers from area fire departments could arrive to extinguish the fire. Nothing of the wooden structure remained, and all the family's belongings were lost.

At the edge of the yard, a gas grill, propane tank and blue plastic cooler leaned against a wire fence that had once surrounded the house.

Fox said he had lived in the house for about 15 years. He was in the kitchen when the heater exploded. "It was a while before the flames started," he said.

Sitze said she had smelled gas in the house Friday, but no one discovered a leak. The gas heater had been running for three days without any problems, she said.

"You see stuff like this on TV," she said. "You never think it will happen to you."

As rounds of ammunition stored in the house popped in the distance, Fox watched the blaze with friends and neighbors who had gathered. Other spectators gathered on a hillside across the highway to get a glimpse of the fire. Sheriff's deputies blocked a portion of the highway while firefighters battled the blaze.

Fire departments from Marble Hill, Leopold and Glen Allen put out the fire in about a half hour.

Fox, Sitze and Carlson had lived in the five-room house. White lives in a mobile home behind the house.

"We all got out OK," White said, who was visibly shaken by the blast. Neighbors offered to help with housing and clothes.