By Nora Perlman
Firefighters battled for five straight hours yesterday to extinguish a fire at 334 Enfield Road.
The home, belonging to Michael and Ellen Hopkins, has been condemned with over $300,000 in damage. Nobody was injured in the fire that lasted from 3:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Ellen, a cashier at Washington and Lee Law School’s Brief Stop, received a frantic call from her husband about half an hour after the fire started. Neighbors alerted Michael after they noticed smoke rising next door.
No one was home at the time of the fire, but the couple lost their three cats that were inside. The Hopkins family moved into the house in 1995 and raised their two children there.
Trent Roberts, the fire marshal, said he’s still trying to recover what’s left of the family’s belongings. So far, the Lexington Fire Department has been able to retrieve several charred family photographs and a pearl necklace that belonged to Ellen’s mother.