Cami Minks was getting ready for bed in her Centreville home on a quiet Sunday night, when suddenly, her house vibrated from the sound of an enormous explosion.
“I thought it was a bomb,” Minks, a resident of the Belle Pond neighborhood, recalled. “It was that loud. It shook everything.”
Dozens of Centreville residents are still unable to return home almost a day after a fiery explosion possibly fueled by a natural gas leak rocked their neighborhood.
The Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department responded around 9:48 p.m. yesterday (Sunday) to the 14300 block of Quail Pond Court in the Belle Pond Farm neighborhood after receiving multiple calls about “a loud explosion.”
As Fairfax County officials prepare recommendations for Centreville’s future for review, one supervisor hopes to see a focus on options for boosting housing.
Fairfax County is updating its Centreville comprehensive plan, a long-term land use guide for the community’s core to complement the zoning ordinance. The Centreville plan amendment was one topic Sully District Supervisor Kathy Smith (D) addressed in remarks at the 2026 State of Centreville hosted by the Dulles Regional Chamber of Commerce on Friday (Feb. 6).
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors directed County Executive Bryan Hill last Tuesday (Feb. 3) to consider ways a number of “placemaking” organizations — including Visit Fairfax, Volunteer Fairfax and the Tysons Community Alliance — could be consolidated or restructured to reduce costs and be more operationally strategic.
“While each provides value, fragmentation and duplicative services dilute impact and reduce efficiency,” board members said in the directive to Hill.
An already busy Centreville shopping center flanked by H Mart, Spa World and various eateries was even more crowded than usual when the Japanese department store Teso Life opened last Friday (Jan. 16).
The chain carries a variety of Japanese and other Asian home goods, food, personal care items and more. Its new location in the Old Centreville Crossing shopping center (13860 Braddock Road) is the first in Virginia and the second in the D.C. region, following an opening in Rockville, Maryland, in 2024.
An Alexandria man was killed this morning (Wednesday) in a crash on I-66 that left his vehicle totaled.
Nurelen Befekadu, 35, was driving on the westbound I-66 ramp to Route 28 (Sully Road) in Centreville around 5:36 a.m. when he lost control of his vehicle and hit a sound wall, according to the Virginia State Police.
A longstanding movie theater in Centreville has changed hands, raising the prospect that it could be redeveloped in the future.
Finmarc Management, a commercial real estate firm based in Bethesda, Maryland, announced on Friday (Nov. 21) that it has acquired Cinemark Centreville (6201 Multiplex Drive) and Xscape Theatres (7710 Matapeake Business Drive) in Prince George’s County for a combined $15.1 million.
The Centreville High School teacher who alleged that a social worker pressured a student to get an abortion without parental notification — a claim that school officials called “likely untrue” — is now taking her case to court.
Zenaida Perez, backed by the pro-life advocacy organization Americans United for Life (AUL), filed a civil lawsuit yesterday (Wednesday) alleging that Fairfax County Public Schools defamed and retaliated against her after she went public with her claims.
The Centreville High School teacher who alleged that a social worker had helped students obtain abortions in 2021 is now on paid leave.
Fairfax County Public Schools Director of Employee Relations William Fulton notified Zenaida Perez on Monday (Oct. 20) that she has been placed on paid administrative leave, effective immediately, after investigators released a report last week challenging the veracity of her claims.
Claims that a social worker at Centreville High School pressured students into obtaining abortions without informing their guardians appear to be baseless, attorneys hired by Fairfax County Public Schools say.
A preliminary investigation found not only that the teacher who made the allegations may have withheld and fabricated evidence, but that state officials might have been made aware of the allegations well before they were publicly reported, King & Spalding partner Sean Royall said in statements sent yesterday (Thursday) to the U.S. Department of Education and Sen. Bill Cassidy, who chairs the Senate education committee.
