Williamsburg Premium Outlets parking lot fire contained, resident concerned

The fire department plans to let the fire burn itself out

JAMES CITY COUNTY, Va. (WAVY) — A fire continues to burn in part of a parking lot at a large shopping center in James City County. The smoky conditions also continue and nearby residents have expressed concern about the ongoing fire.

WAVY returned to the scene in a parking lot at the Williamsburg Premium Outlets in James City County Monday afternoon to find smoke continuing to billow from the ground from a fire that began around 1 p.m. 9 Saturday.

A WAVY viewer John Morgan Massa sent drone footage from the scene.

“I just hope it gets fixed soon and maybe people take a little bit better precautions,” resident Genevieve Pietrzak said. “This is like a busy mall and everyone was just really happy to just get back to business as usual.”

Part of the parking lot collapsed, leaving a landscape of blasted concrete. The fire has no end in sight.

“Because the location of the fire is underground, (it) would make it very difficult to do,” said Renee Dallman, a public information officer with James City County, speaking about extinguishing the fire. “So really, the best bet for our firefighters now is to just hold it in and let it burn itself out.”

Dallman said the fire is in an underground stormwater storage facility.

“It’s very similar to milk crates that are stacked up, and the rainwater from the front of the parking lot runs off and goes into those crates,” Dallman said, “and then eventually it goes from there, and then the plastic, the crates are made of. has caught fire.”

James City County said safety is the priority as the fire continues to burn.

“All the air monitoring that they’ve done has been within the normal limits of a fire,” Dallman said. “We have the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality Office of Pollution Response. They were notified and asked to come as part of our normal procedure that we do here.”

Along with DEQ’s Office of Pollution Control, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Virginia Department of Emergency Management have also been on the scene to investigate the fire.

The local sewer system and cemetery are not involved in the fire. Pietrzak said seeing the fire in his own backyard is troubling.

“I was very shocked,” she said. “It’s the kind of thing you see on the news and never really expect it to actually happen where you go often. I also live around the block from here so it’s concerning and the fact that it’s still going on, is a little more worrying that everything is business as usual when it is less than a kilometer away.”

The cause of the accident is still unknown and may never be determined. The James City County Fire Department says it is monitoring the fire 24/7.