Early chopper video: Fatal house fire in Anne Arundel County, MD with ammo exploding. Neighbors jump in to help.
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Raw video above from TV news chopper via WUSA-TV of a fatal fire in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. Fire officials say they were hampered by stored hunting ammunition exploding. In the video, neighbors are also using garden hoses and in the image below (from about 5:30 in the raw video) it looks like one civilian picks up something a little bit bigger. Reporter Scott Broom talks to neighbors and firefighters in the video at the bottom of the page.
Rescuers trying to get to a disabled man trapped in a burning trailer home were met with flying bullets as ammunition stored inside the house exploded on Wednesday morning.
The trapped man was eventually discovered dead inside the home. Fire officials have not released his identity, but neighbors said he was a 55-year old husband, father and grandfather who was disabled. His wife had gone to work.
The fire is being investigated as an accident. Rescuers believe the ammunition was for hunting and was stored inside the house.
After briefly taking cover, rescuers quickly determined they were not under attack and began pouring water on the house quickly, said Lt. Cliff Kooser of the Anne Arundel County Fire Dept.
Neighbors said the fire was so intense, there was little hope of rescuing the trapped man, despite the exploding ammunition.
The fire was reported just after 8 a.m. at 9 Zona St. in the Parkway Village trailer community in Maryland City.
Press release from Anne Arundel County Fire Department Division Chief Keith Swindle:
At 8:26 a.m. on Wednesday, January 2, 2013, Anne Arundel County Firefighters were dispatched to a reported dwelling fire in the unit block of Zona Road in the Parkway Village Mobile Home Park located in the Maryland City area of Anne Arundel County. The first unit to arrive on the scene reported visible fire coming from a one-story double-wide mobile home. An aggressive fire suppression and search/rescue operation was then initiated by the first arriving crews. In all, it took approximately 40 Firefighters from Anne Arundel, Ft.Meade, Prince Georges and Howard County Fire Departments 45 minutes to bring the “All Hands” incident under control. After the fire was extinguished, Firefighters working on the first floor living area of the home located the body of an occupant that Fire Department personnel determined had suffered fatal injuries as a result of the incident and was pronounced dead at the scene.
The fire was reported by neighbors who were alerted to the incident when they observed smoke coming from the home. The fire which originated on the first floor of the dwelling caused an estimated $150,000 in damages. The exact cause of the fire remains under investigation.
At this time, the name of the victim and the immediate cause of death are being withheld pending positive identification and the result of an autopsy by the State Medical Examiner. A preliminary investigation into the incident did reveal that there were smoke detectors in the dwelling however, it is unclear if they were operable at the time of the fire.
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