A teenager home alone in her family’s Abingdon residence escaped an accidental Tuesday evening fire which seriously damaged the structure, according to fire officials.
The fire was discovered by the 13-year-old girl at approximately 7:49 p.m. Tuesday in the basement of her family’s two-story townhome in the 3300 block of Midland Court in Abingdon, according to a release from the Office of the State Fire Marshal. The girl was home alone on the second floor when she heard a smoke alarm and discovered heavy smoke coming from the basement, fire officials said.
A total of 40 firefighters from the Abingdon, Joppa-Magnolia, Aberdeen Proving Ground, and Bel Air fire companies, as well as the Harford County Hazmat team, responded and brought the fire under control in approximately 15 minutes.
The blaze was ruled accidental in nature and was traced to a fire in a basement dryer. Damage to the home is estimated at $100,000, while damages to its contents were estimated at $50,000, according to the State Fire Marshal’s Office. The family is being aided by the Harford County Disaster Assistance team.
Smoke alarms save lives…
I think a tutorial is needed on dryer inspection and cleaning,there have been a lot of fires due to this issue alone. Thankfully no one was hurt!!!
Just cleaned my vent last week, and it had been too long. Sometimes the dryer will malfunction no matter what you do.
Side note: I like how the press release provides the block number, but the photo provided tells you the exact address. Geniuses.
That’s actually my doing, not the OSFM release or the Abingdon VFC photo, which we put together from separate sources.
The OSFM releases–which are public information–always provide the exact, numbered address at which an incident occurred. I generally choose to trim that to just the block number, to give the victims a modicum of privacy.
The Abingdon VFC photos were good, but all the usable ones had the house number clearly visible. I wasn’t comfortable with photoshopping a news photo–especially one I didn’t take–but I also think it’s newsworthy to show photos of these incidents when possible. Thus, a story with the block number and a photo with the house number.
I grant that it seems contradictory to be worried about privacy when writing the address in the story, but then blast a photo–whether the house number is visible or not–of a family’s destroyed home right above it. I’m not 100 pct sure we’re doing it right, but I try to make these decisions in good faith.
Thanks for the reply, that’s a stand up thing to do. In your situation, yes, that could be a tough call. I would probably not use the photo. Though I understand modern technological pressure to involve media, it’s still okay to force people to use their imagination.
Anyone using a dryer this time of year needs to think about life’s choices. The air in your house is bone dry and hanging up the clothes indoor to dry naturally costs nothing and adds humidity. On the other hand you can put the clothes in a metal box, beat them to death and dump the moisture and heat outside where it is 8 degrees.
Genius.
Henry is absolutely right. The folks who own this townhouse made the choice to save energy by living in an inner unit townhouse. They only have to heat two walls and the roof. The roof on a townhouse is pretty small. In fact, the cubic footage of a townhouse is pretty small, so not a lot of energy is wasted on heating empty space. Economically and environmentally, they made a good choice I live in a townhouse myself. When we first moved here, we had plenty of space for the two if us. We didn’t even own a dryer for the first few years because we liked the fresh smell of outdoor dried clothes and because we were saving energy. The few cold months we dried the clothes in the basement. Then we had 2 children. Babies go through a LOT of laundry, (Especially when they are in cloth diapers) so we bought a drier to speed things up a little during the heavier periods, but still used the inside and outside lines quite a bit. Essentially the whole basement was a laundry. Townhouses usually don’t have garages, so we needed space for storage, and a small workshop. As the kids got older we needed more space for them too, so we made a small clubroom. Now there is no space at all to hang clothes. So we have a dryer now, and it is a big one! We try to be as green as we can. We drive efficient cars, We bought where we did so that we wouldn’t have to drive far to work or shopping. Our environmental footprint is pretty small. I would expect the people who just lost their home don’t have space to dry clothes inside anymore either. Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do. I could certainly afford to move into a nice energy wasting rancher where I would have more space and not have to climb steps in my old age. I’d have room in that basement to hand a week’s worth of clothes at a time! All of my friends have moved to bigger houses. Four of my closest friends live in houses that are easily over 3,000 square feet, and two of those top 4,000 square feet. Their manicured 2 acre lots are quite nice too. Two of those couples never had children by choice. The other two bought their homes after the kids had moved out They have plenty of room in their basements to dry clothes, but they don’t. I’m thinking more and more about that rancher! What am I saving energy for anyway, when most of the people in the county are driving heavy SUVs and trucks and living in large homes on large lots. Is it going to make the oil and coal last longer? Nope, the more I save energy, the more everyone else wastes it! Now Henry, if you have room to hang your clothes in the basement, I suspect that your house is far too large for your family to be considered efficient. Given that, why the heck do you feel justified lecturing a young family in a townhouse who’s house was just burned to the ground by a drier fire? Try to work on being less of an inconsiderate pompous jerk, Genius.
Awesome. I thought it, but you wrote it. I had this exact conversation with my boss 2 weeks ago, as he hang dries his clothes in his boiler room and the dining room he doesn’t use next to the coal stove he heats his large home with. Which is great, I would do that in a heartbeat, if I had any of those things and no small children, or if the HOA didn’t prohibit hanging clothes outside.
A little thought for another person’s life situation can go a long way. You win the award.