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Man Missing After Fire Rips Through Woodbridge Home

Hours after flames tore through a Woodbridge, Virginia, townhouse, a man who lives in the home is still unaccounted for. 

The fire broke out early Wednesday at a home on Ponderosa Court. Officials said three townhouses in the row were deemed unsafe.

Fire Department Capt. Brian Ferguson said officials were looking into where the unaccounted person might be, though officials did not release specific information about that person.

The flames reached high over the house, neighbor Joyce Shingler said she saw in the middle of the night.

"I heard pounding ... and 'Fire, fire, get out of the house! Get out of your house!" she said. "You just thought, somebody can't be in there, can they?"

During the blaze, a man arrived and started screaming "My dad, my dad," Shingler said, beginning to cry. That man needed to be restrained, she and other neighbors said.

"We had certainty there was somebody there [in the townhouse] because the car was parked right in front of their house," neighbor Eva Luz Ojeda said.

The cause of the fire is under investigation, but Ferguson said Wednesday evening that safety and stability problems were keeping investigators from accessing the townhouse.

Officials said six adults and three children were displaced and being assisted by the Red Cross. Ferguson said one firefighter was taken to a hospital with a minor injury and released.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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