Neighbors and coworkers were pulling together to help a longtime Stone Mountain woman whose home was damaged by fire Tuesday morning.
Virginia Seeley, who raised her four adult children in the home on Hunters Drive, said she smelled smoke before 7 a.m.
“It was just a little bit of smoke, and I thought, ‘what is burning?’”
Seeley, who teaches in the DeKalb County school system, was able to get out of the house that she has called home for 26 years safely, despite the flames that eventually tore through the roof of the two-story home.
DeKalb fire Battalion Chief Maurice Gates said most of the fire damage was confined to the attic area, with some water damage on the first floor.
There were no injuries, Gates said.
Jane Aultman works with Seeley.
“I was on my way to work and a coworker said Ginny had called in and said that her house was on fire, so I just came over to check on her because she’s a dear friend,” Aultman said. “It scared me when I came up and saw so many fire trucks and ambulances.”
Aultman said she planned to “just be there to help her with anything she needs.”
William Dillard called Seeley a “good neighbor.”
“She’s our neighborhood captain; she’s here all the time and she watches over our houses,” Dillard said.
Dillard said he and other neighbors would “pull together and help and do what we can.”
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