Family displaced after cooking fire destroys Myrtle Beach home

Three people were displaced, but a puppy was saved in a cooking fire that destroyed a home on Gasque Lane in an unincorporated area of Myrtle Beach Tuesday afternoon.

Firefighters in Horry County were busy Tuesday, battling a string of reported brush fires fueled by low humidity, but although no injuries were reported, the structure fire resulted in the greatest loss.

Horry County Fire Rescue and the Myrtle Beach Fire Department were dispatched to the home at 2456 Gasque Lane minutes before 4 p.m. A man, who was inside the home when the fire started, made it out to safety before the firefighters arrived on scene.

“It was an unintentional house fire” that started in a kitchen and spread to the roof, said Horry County Fire Rescue Battalion Chief Dan Shankle. “It took us about a half-hour to get it all under control.”

The home was deemed a total loss after the fire, but the family’s puppy was saved.

“Myrtle Beach Fire Department went in and did a secondary search and they found a puppy” hiding under a bed, Shankle said. “The puppy wasn’t hurt at all. It was good.”

The American Red Cross is assisting the family.

Horry County Fire Rescue crews were dispatched to a reported brush fire behind a home under construction on Lamplighter Road about an hour after the Gasque Lane blaze.

“A neighbor was burning debris and with the really low-humidity today it left the containment area where he had it and started a little woods fire,” Shankle said.

The fire melted the siding of an outbuilding behind the home across from 7650 Lamplighter Road, but crews were able to make it to the scene and extinguish the blaze before it reached any nearby structures.

With low-humidity conditions something little can turn into something big, Shankle said.

Low-humidity and windy conditions “are just a great recipe for everything drying out,” he added.

Although winds were slight Tuesday, the low-humid conditions may have fueled the increase in brush fires.

People are advised to use caution when burning debris while the area remains under low-humidity conditions. A burn ban would have been initiated if the low-humidity conditions were accompanied by higher winds, Shankle said.

This story was originally published April 19, 2016 at 8:54 PM with the headline "Family displaced after cooking fire destroys Myrtle Beach home."