SARASOTA, Fla. — Charred wooden frames are what's left of the Sarasota home of a 77-year-old Vietnam veteran.
Just before noon, Monday dispatchers got the call about a structure fire at the home on Ponder Avenue off of Bahia Vista Street in Sarasota County.
Firefighters arrived on the scene within three minutes and found the home heavily engulfed in flames. Florida Power and Light was also called to the scene due to downed power lines around the house.
Around 25 fire trucks and 45 firefighters responded to the scene and were still putting out the smoldering embers late into the evening.
The area was roped off as investigators from the sheriff's office bomb squad combed the area for any possible military-type artillery.
The homeowner had gone out to run an errand and was not around when the fire started.
He said he also used his home as a storage for his business and had several combustible materials, including some scuba diving gear.
"I had paint cans but I also had several cans of saline. I had my scuba gear. I had several bottles of scuba gear and that blew up. As a matter of fact, I probably had six or seven of them," Homeowner James Ward said.
"I got oxygen and saline tanks in there and they blew up. I lost four cars, an 85 Eldorado, and a two-door hardtop. I lost the first car I ever owned which was a 55 Chevrolet," he added.
Ward said his grandfather built the house and he had lived in it since 1951.
"I had antiques, I had swords, I had antique guns, books, books that were worth over thousand dollars, first editions. A stamp collection, I lost it. There was a dollar coin collection worth thousands of dollars. I'm broke," he said.
County fire will be working with a representative from the state fire marshal to determine the cause and origin of the fire.
"We have still not been able to gain access to the interior of the structure so we're trying to get the fire completely out so we can get in there and investigate a little further," Travis Dagenais, SCFD Assistant Chief of Operations, said.
"We did have a variety size of explosions during the firefighting operations, but we haven't been able to determine what causes could be propane or oxygen cylinder or something like that," Dagenais said.
One neighbor who sustained some damage to his fence said he watched the incident unfold and described what he saw.
"It sounded like somebody was dropping off a bomb. We had a 30-foot fireball in the backfire fence a couple of firefighters down," Steven Fields recalled.
"He does home improvements, so he had a lot of paint cans and stuff like that in the shed and those were the real big explosions that we saw today when the sheds went up," he added.
Despite the high winds today, officials said the fire was quickly brought under control and didn't extend to any other homes.
They also said there were no injuries to any of the neighbors or the firefighters.
The Department of Environmental Protection was also on the scene as a precaution due to the potential of hazardous materials in the home.