{"id":307600,"date":"2026-06-15T04:06:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T04:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/307600\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T04:06:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T04:06:07","slug":"fire-displaces-orange-county-couple-at-property-once-burdened-by-2-5-million-in-code-enforcement-penalties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/307600\/","title":{"rendered":"Fire displaces Orange County couple at property once burdened by $2.5 million in code enforcement penalties"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">MAITLAND, Fla. \u2013 ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 A local couple is searching for a new place to live after their home, filled with decades of memories, was heavily damaged in a fire Sunday afternoon near Maitland. <\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">Orange County Fire Rescue crews responded just after 4:30 p.m. Sunday to a house fire on Avonwood Court, where firefighters found the home overwhelmed by heavy fire. <\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">\u201cThis house has heavy fire damage. The residents will be displaced for some time,\u201d said Thomas Rock with Orange County Fire Rescue. <\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">Mary Godfry said she saw thick black smoke and flames rising above the neighborhood before learning it was her home. \u201cI\u2019ve been in that house for 25 years. I see all these homeless people around, and I don\u2019t want to be like them,\u201d Godfry said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">The home may look familiar to some News 6 viewers. In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.clickorlando.com\/news\/2016\/02\/10\/neighbors-fed-up-with-hoarders-yard\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.clickorlando.com\/news\/2016\/02\/10\/neighbors-fed-up-with-hoarders-yard\/\">2016<\/a>, News 6 first featured the property after it accumulated more than $2.5 million in code enforcement fines and liens. \u201cI would like to move back in, yes, but it\u2019s going to take a lot to get this junk out of here,\u201d said Bill Zorn, the homeowner.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">Zorn said he inherited the property about 25 years ago and has struggled to keep up with costly repairs. \u201cWhen they put a lien on the house, there was no way of getting a roof on the house and no way of getting air conditioning in the house,\u201d Zorn said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">While investigators are still working to determine what sparked the fire, firefighters said the poor condition of the home created major challenges for crews as they worked to put out the flames. \u201cThere was a heavy fuel load \u2014 a lot of stuff inside the home when crews arrived \u2014 and it made it difficult for them to get inside and conduct an interior attack,\u201d Rock said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">The **American Red Cross** is helping the couple with housing, food, clothing and other resources. Investigators are still working to determine what caused the fire.<\/p>\n<p>Breaking News Alerts<\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 bTVksG\">Get breaking news alerts delivered to your inbox.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 by WKMG ClickOrlando &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MAITLAND, Fla. \u2013 ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 A local couple is searching for a new place to live&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307601,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[40354,855,28,30,29,1335],"class_list":["post-307600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-code-enforcement","tag-fire","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-orange-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307600","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=307600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}