Gumlog House Fire Cause Under Investigation

An investigation is underway into the cause of a house fire in the Gumlog Community that was believed to be a trap house.

It happened Tuesday evening in the Fisherman’s Cove neighborhood on Pinehurst Road.

According to Franklin County Sheriff Steve Thomas, the house had recently been declared uninhabitable by the County Marshal.

“My work crew went over yesterday (Tuesday) and helped them board the windows up on the house but it burned last night. Investigators and the fire department are working on it now,” Thomas said.

WLHR News spoke with Gumlog Fire Chief Robert Massey who confirmed he is working with investigators to determine a cause. The fire is suspicious because the house had no electricity and no running water.

Thomas said the house had been abandoned but was being used as a trap house – that is, a house where drugs are sold. He said his deputies had made arrests at that house previously.

In addition to the Gumlog Fire Department, Lavonia, Five-Area, and Line Fire Departments assisted in putting out the fire. The house was a complete loss.

Thomas and Massey both said no one was inside the house when the fire broke out.

Meantime, County Marshal Freddy Akin said the owner of the house is serving a 60-day jail sentence for violating a court order to move out.

Akin said after numerous attempts to get the owner to clean up the house and property, the two people staying there, the owner and a tenant had been taken to magistrate court because of the condition of the property.

Magistrate Judge Cody Grizzle ordered the two residents to leave the property and if caught back there they would have to serve 60 days in jail. Akin said the pair did return to the house and they were sent to jail.

Additionally, because they were caught Grizzle issued an additional order for the property to be boarded up.

Akin said the owner has been in and out of magistrate court for years because of the condition of the property going back to the time when Chris Ayers was Marshal.

He said the house was one of the main properties with blight issues he has dealt with in the Gumlog area.

And last year, it was one of the houses that were the subject of complaints from residents in Fisherman’s Cove who came before the Franklin County Board of Commissioners to ask for help with the blight problems in Gumlog.

One Fisherman’s Cove resident, Dave Dorsa said at the time that there is rampant drug use in the area and he has had to put up security cameras on his property because of the activity that goes on in the middle of the night.

“My neighborhood is a mixture of children and elderly people and when I was driving by with my neighbor taking these pictures, some of these places are so set back and overgrown, if someone on drugs or an unwell person were to drag a child or an elderly person back there you’re not going to find them for days, if ever. I and some of my neighbors have spent hundreds of dollars on security video cameras and we’ve recorded all kinds of nefarious activity,” he told Commissioners.

He said 911 has been called numerous times by residents of the neighborhood but nothing has been done to fix the problem.

“The properties, the houses that people are living in, have no water, no electricity, no windows, no front doors. They’re using a drywall bucket for a bathroom. They’re using the lake for a bathtub. It’s frustrating. And the zombie-like activity at 3:30 in the morning that sets off your security cameras and the lights, it’s aggravating. And then to be dismissed by the police department. I called once and they said, ‘people are dropping off Campbell soup’ at 3:30 in the morning. That was my answer from the dispatcher,” he said.

In April, County Manager Derrick Turner gave the Board an update on his research into the kinds of blight ordinances surrounding counties and municipalities have in place.

Turner told the Board most communities and metro areas such as Savannah have instituted a blight tax, which allows the county or city governments to increase the property tax on dilapidated properties up to seven times the millage rate until the property is cleaned up.

Akin told the Board there are pockets of blighted areas throughout Franklin County where the houses or trailers have been abandoned and cannot be fixed.

Since then, a Gumlog neighborhood group has formed called Reclaim Gumlog Georgia to fight the drug problem and blight issues.