Five people were displaced today after a cooking-related fire heavily damaged a brick home in South Richmond, fire officials said.

There is never a good time to have a house fire, but some times are better than others. Such was the case Sunday afternoon, when five residents of a Watergate Drive duplex escaped a fast-moving blaze that started on the ground and raced up vinyl siding to the attic. “If this had happened at 3 a.m., it could have been very bad,“ said Ed Jones, battalion chief with the Lynchburg Fire Department. “It also helped that it was on a Sunday, and there was very little traffic out on Ward’s Ferry Road.“

A fire and acid spill at a metal plating company near Toano in James City County resulted in three firefighters being taken to a hospital yesterday evening. The fire broke out from a heater that activated a sprinkler system about 7:30 p.m. at the Greystone of Virginia plating operation, James City fire district Chief Bob Ryalls said. The sprinkler system forced two, 120-gallon vats of chromic acid to overflow, creating noxious smoke and corrosive problems.

The death toll in Australia’s Victoria state rose to at least 108 on Sunday, and firefighters say it could be days before they have the blaze under control.

A fund has been created to provide for a King William County family whose home was gutted by fire on New Year’s Eve.

A Henrico County firefighter suffered a foot injury and seven residents of Hunter’s Ridge apartments were displaced yesterday by a two-alarm fire near the Windsor Park neighborhood off Gayton Road. The fire at 54 Braeburn Drive, reported at 6:40 p.m., affected eight apartment units, five of them inhabited, fire officials said. The fire was under control within an hour.