A former school building on the Reston border that has been empty for nearly a decade burned down last night (Sunday) in a two-alarm fire.
Units with the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department were initially dispatched at 10:25 p.m. to an address on Crowell Road before seeing smoke closer to the Dulles Toll Road and determining that the correct address for the reported fire was 1624 Hunter Mill Road, according to scanner traffic.
“Units arrived to find an abandoned, two-story building with fire showing throughout,” the FCFRD said in a Facebook post. “Crews conducted searches while stretching multiple hose-lines to extinguish the fire.”
A second alarm was called to draw more units to help battle the blaze, and at one point, police were requested to help handle traffic that was starting to get backed up on Hunter Mill Road, per the scanner.
Firefighters were able to get the blaze under control by 11:30 p.m. No injuries were reported.
“Fire investigators are working to determine the cause of the fire,” the FCFRD said.
The building appears to have been part of the former Fairfax Christian School campus, which was vacated in 2018 when the private school relocated to a larger site in Dulles built out with athletic facilities and a performance hall.
The nearly 30-acre Reston campus was targeted for redevelopment just last year by a developer identified as G&G LLC, which proposed transforming approximately 67 acres along Hunter Mill Road near the Sunset Hills and Crowell intersections into a residential neighborhood with up to 100 homes.
The Site-Specific Plan Amendment (SSPA) nominator initially sought to exclude a long-planned realignment that would connect Sunset Hills Road to Crowell Road instead of Hunter Mill from its proposal, but agreed to incorporate the road changes based on community feedback.
The Fairfax County Planning Commission still recommended against advancing the SSPA to a work program that would allow it to be formally studied by county staff, and the nomination was ultimately withdrawn.
Some transportation improvements could still come to the Sunset Hills/Hunter Mill intersection after the Reston Transportation Service District advisory board recommended this spring that the county allocate $1 million toward an initial analysis of a potential project to restripe the southbound Hunter Mill lanes, replace the existing traffic signal and add bicycle lanes.
According to Fairfax County property records, the former Fairfax Christian School campus was sold for $4 million on April 24, 2026 as part of a multi-parcel sale to Sunset Hills Dreams LLC, an apparent affiliate of G&G LLC that shares its official Alexandria address, suggesting the company is still interested in a redevelopment.
