A Gwynn’s Island home was destroyed by a fire that occurred shortly after 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 27. 
Two 20-year-old cockatoos perished in the fire, which was at the home of Jeff and Bonnie Charles in the 100 block of Rose Lane. The Charleses have been longtime tenants of the house. It is owned by Bonnie Charles’s sister.
Bonnie said she and Jeff had left the house and had stopped at the Farm Fresh in Gloucester while en route to their granddaughter’s house in Ocean View when they received a call from their neighbor saying they needed to come back because their house was on fire. She said that, in addition to losing their birds, they lost everything they owned. But thankfully, she said, someone let her dog and one of her cats off the porch when they saw the fire, and her barn cats and the horses she and her sister own were not injured.
Todd Wilson, chief of the Mathews Volunteer Fire Department, said that the first firefighters arrived in less than 10 minutes, ...