GASTON COUNTY, N.C. — The mother of NASCAR driver Denny Hamlin says firefighters didn’t have water to put out the fire that killed her husband.
She spoke publicly for the first time during Tuesday night’s Gaston County Board of Commissioners meeting.
“I didn’t understand, at the time, that the fire trucks were there, but not the water,” Mary Lou Hamlin said. “There was no water to put out my house.”
She said she pulled her husband, 75-year-old Dennis Hamlin, out of their burning home in Stanley in December 2025. He died along with their two pets.
Hamlin begged commissioners to provide more money to fire departments in their next budget.
Fire investigators said the fire was an accident, but they couldn’t pinpoint the exact cause.
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