By SHAWN STREET, shawn@virginiamediainc.com
A house fire in the Roanoke Hill area of Dante has claimed the life of one man.
Carl “Sonny” Sutherland was killed when his house caught fire on the afternoon of June 17.
Sutherland’s neighbor, Cristin Townsend, said he was a Marine Corps veteran, a former paramedic and a lifelong resident of Dante.
Townsend said the fire erupted between 12:00 p.m. and 12:30 p.m. While waiting on fire departments to arrive on the scene, Townsend said her 15-year-old son and others attempted to help Sutherland.
“My son and some others tried to get him out,” she said. “But the smoke was so thick and heat from the fire was so great, they couldn’t get inside the house.”
“It was my son’s fifteenth birthday,” she added. “There was nothing they could do. He feels terrible.”
Dante has been without a fire department since the late summer of 2024. Crews from surrounding communities arrived on the scene to put out the fire. Townsend estimated it took approximately 45 minutes for the first fire truck to arrive.
“That’s no fault of the fire fighters,” she stressed, expressing her appreciation for their efforts. She said a trip that takes just a few minutes by car is considerably longer when a fire truck filled with water has to drive uphill on a two-lane road.
“We don’t blame the fire department,” Townsend explained. “But covering this whole area should not be put on St. Paul.”
She said it was especially frustrating due to the fact that a fire hydrant was just feet from Sutherland’s house. “If we had access to the fire hydrant, maybe we could’ve done something to put out the fire,” she said. “Or if there had been a fire department within two miles of where he lived. His death was unjust.”
Townsend said many in Dante feel as if their community has been forgotten.
“We’re still a town,” she said. “We’re still a people. This is a great community but we feel forgotten. Having a fire department should be a top priority.”
The status of the Dante Fire Department has been a controversial issue since August 2024. On August 14 of that year, Russell County Administrator and then Emergency Management Director Lonzo Lester issued an order stating, “Russell County Dispatch: By order of the Director of Emergency Management, effective immediately ALL operations of the Dante Fire Department are hereby suspended until further notice.”
The following day Lester provided more information about the order via statement he posted online. It read, “There has been several emergency management issues that have come to the attention of the county during the annual Line of Duty review and the Dante Fire Department Facility Grant from the Federal Congressional Direct Spending legislation that concerned the county’s Department of Emergency Management.”
The statement went to say, “The major emergency management issue is the Dante Volunteer Fire Department’s failure to maintain a current roster of 20 effective, trained and certified members to maintain compliance with the Code of Virginia and its ability to deliver emergency fire services in the Dante service area per the county’s emergency operational plan.”
Other areas of concern included the department had let its non-profit and corporation status expire and could not provide training or financial records.
Following the cessation of operations of the Dante Volunteer Fire Department, the county formed a mutual aid agreement with fire departments in Castlewood, Cleveland and St. Paul to cover the Dante area.
Investigations by law enforcement followed as did a lawsuit filed against the county by department treasurer Daniel Meade.
That lawsuit was dropped in November 2025. During a hearing in the Buchanan County Circuit Court, Judge Elizabeth Reece Robertson formally dissolved the department.
The following day, the board released a statement about the case.
“From the outset, the county’s position has been that the lawsuit was a politically motivated filing with no factual or legal basis,” the statement said.
“Shortly after the litigation was initiated, it was discovered that the entity filing the suit was not the real Dante Volunteer Fire Department. Instead, the plaintiff was a corporation formed in Sept. 2024, also using the name Dante Volunteer Fire Department, and created by a resident of the Castlewood community. This individual and their corporation had no legal affiliation whatsoever with the actual Dante Volunteer Fire Department.”
According to the statement, county officials conducted their own review of the operational and legal status of the “real Dante Volunteer Fire Department.” The statement outlined four findings from that review. They are as follows:
1. The real Dante Volunteer Fire Department’s corporate status was terminated by the Virginia State Corporation Commission in 2015.
2. Despite this termination, the department had continued to operate without corporate or nonprofit status, without proper insurance, and without verified training compliance.
3. Upon learning of, and confirming these facts, the county issued a cease-operations notice in Aug. 2024 to the real department to prevent continued operation in violation of state law and to ensure public safety.
4. The county subsequently filed a separate action requesting that the Court formally dissolve the defunct corporation.
The statement went on to say, “It remains the county’s goal to establish a new, properly trained, fully insured and legally complaint fire department in the Dante community once appropriate funding is secured. The board of supervisors is committed to ensuring the safety of all residents and will continue to work toward a permanent and sustainable solution.”
In April federal officials approved $602,000 to replace the defunct Dante Fire Department as part of the fiscal year 2027 appropriations bill.