{"id":102780,"date":"2026-01-02T01:35:35","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T01:35:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/102780\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T01:35:35","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T01:35:35","slug":"fireworks-cause-3-fires-in-hillsborough-county-hcfr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/102780\/","title":{"rendered":"Fireworks cause 3 fires in Hillsborough County: HCFR"},"content":{"rendered":"

RIVERVIEW, Fla. \u2014 Hillsborough County Fire Rescue (HCFR) said fireworks caused three fires in Hillsborough County, two in Riverview and one in the Palm River area.<\/p>\n

WATCH: Fireworks cause 3 fires in Hillsborough County: HCFR<\/p>\n

Fireworks cause 3 fires in Hillsborough County: HCFR<\/p>\n

HCFR said they received multiple 911 calls reporting a residential structure fire on Mile Marsh Drive in Riverview at approximately 12:49 a.m. on Jan. 1.<\/p>\n

Units arrived to find a fully engulfed two-story residence, with the fire threatening a neighboring house, per the report.<\/p>\n

\"Mile<\/p>\n

Hillsborough County Fire Rescue<\/p>\n

Officials said the fire was brought under control in just under an hour, and residents were able to evacuate safely before the crews arrived.<\/p>\n

According to HCFR, investigators determined fireworks were the cause of the fire, and the American Red Cross was contacted to assist the displaced family.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the middle of the night, 1:00am, somebody knocked our window, go, get out of here. There\u2019s a fire,” said next-door neighbor Lan Loc. <\/p>\n

Tampa Bay 28 visited the scene on Mile Marsh Drive and met Loc, who described what she saw.<\/p>\n

\u201cI come out. I was like oh my god. It\u2019s like all flaming,” said Loc. “I keep praying that it\u2019s not going to go over to my house because it\u2019s really, really flamed like crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thursday morning, a smoky smell filled the air with charred remains left behind. Loc explained she had some damage too, while you could still spot ash on her cars. <\/p>\n

\u201cI never feel that experience that by your own eyes, fire like that hard, mine next door,” said Loc. “It was scary.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"pic<\/p>\n

Hillsborough County Fire Rescue<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay 28 asked Rob Herrin with Hillsborough County Fire Rescue about response times after hearing from neighbors.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore Mile Marsh, there was another structure fire, another working structure fire that pulled the units from the area that would respond to Mile Marsh in the first alarm,” said Herrin. “They were on another fire just a matter of a couple miles away from that one, so they were all dedicated to that, so when Mile Marsh came out, we\u2019re now drawing from fire engines from a little bit more of a distance that aren\u2019t in that first alarm.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"pic<\/p>\n

WFTS<\/p>\n

Fire officials warned people need to be very deliberate about cooling fireworks off.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen, over the years that I\u2019ve been doing this, a lot of fires related to fireworks, and most of them aren\u2019t ones that just shoot randomly and catch a house on fire,” said Herrin. “It\u2019s usually the folks that shot their fireworks off, wanted to be the good citizen they are, the good resident they are and get them out of the street, but they don\u2019t cool them enough, and when they put them in their garage or whatever they\u2019re putting them in, they\u2019re too hot, and they start a fire.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through all of these fires, HCFR said no firefighters or people were hurt.<\/p>\n

Share Your Story with Mary

Mary O\u2019Connell has a primary focus on education-related stories for Tampa Bay 28. But she also keeps an eye on public health concerns and the always-changing car insurance market. Reach out to Mary to share any of your questions or concerns.
.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Hillsborough County woman nearly loses $10k to elaborate sheriff’s office phone scam<\/p>\n

Sheri Amarillas was sitting in her car on a Tuesday morning, about to walk into an appointment after dropping her kids off at school, when she received a voicemail that would lead to an hour-and-a-half ordeal with sophisticated scammers.<\/p>\n

Hillsborough County woman nearly loses $10k to elaborate sheriff’s office phone scam<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RIVERVIEW, Fla. \u2014 Hillsborough County Fire Rescue (HCFR) said fireworks caused three fires in Hillsborough County, two in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102781,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[205,53549,276,53550,135,5910,3670,137,136,208],"class_list":["post-102780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-abc-action-news","tag-hcfr","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-riverview-fire","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-bay-28","tag-tampa-bay-local-news","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-wfts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}