Imagine driving down a quiet street at night and seeing a house fully engulfed in flames. The windows glow fiery orange, smoke spills into the trees, and the scene looks so real your first instinct would be to grab your phone and call 911. In Fountain Inn, South Carolina, that’s been happening all month—but the thing is…the house isn’t actually burning.
The illusion belongs to Amanda Peden and Sam Lee, a couple whose Halloween decorations have gone from creative to legendary. Their latest setup, nicknamed the “burning house,” uses smoke machines, orange lighting, and layered visual effects to create the look of a fire raging inside their home. It’s so convincing that even now, two years after they first debuted it, the local fire department still gets calls from people panicking on their evening drive.
“When Amanda first put this up two years ago, we were getting a constant stream of calls,” Fountain Inn Fire Chief Russell Alexander told Today. “This year, it’s not quite as bad, but we’ve already had a few.”
Couple’s Halloween Display Looks So Real, People Keep Calling the Fire Department
To save the fire department some stress, Peden posts a warning every year on Facebook: “Our house will be on fire (not real fire) every night from 8 to 10 p.m. until Halloween. Please do not call the fire department again!”
The message helps a little, but not enough. Alexander says his team still has to respond to every call. “If we get a report of fire, we’re going,” he said. “It’s bad practice not to.”
Inside, life continues as usual. Peden, Lee, and her teenage son eat dinner, watch TV, and listen for sirens in the distance. “The windows are loud, though,” Peden said. “We can hear the trucks coming before we see them.”
The couple’s Halloween setups have become local lore. In 2021, they staged a full plane crash with skeleton passengers. In 2022, it was a car accident, complete with an upside-down van with a skeleton inside. The burning house was their masterpiece—equal parts spectacle and small-town folklore.
Reactions are mixed. Some people call it genius; others say it should be illegal. Lee, a former mayor of Fountain Inn, shrugs off the controversy. “Most people love it,” he said. “You’ll always have one percent who don’t.”
By morning, the smoke clears and the house looks ordinary again. At night, it catches fire all over, and the town keeps falling for it. They’re doing Halloween right.
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