A Whiteford woman may have unwittingly spared her mobile home from complete destruction by closing a bedroom door behind her as she fled the burning dwelling after being unable to extinguish the fire with cups of water.
Just after 7 a.m. on Thursday morning, emergency personnel were dispatched to the 1700 block of Ridge Road in Whiteford for the report of a dwelling fire in a 15-ft by 80-ft single wide manufactured home.
A woman was asleep in the dwelling and awakened to smoke. Upon checking the source, she discovered a fire in the rear bedroom. She attempted to extinguish the fire with cups of water to no avail, at which point she closed the bedroom door and exited the home.
It is the opinion of the on scene investigators that, by closing the door, the woman unwittingly contained the fire to the single bedroom. Citizens are reminded if they should discover a fire, close the doors behind them as they vacate to the outside, call 911 and never go back inside.
Thirty firefighters from the Whiteford Volunteer Fire Company responded and had the single-alarm fire under control within 40 minutes. There were no injuries reported.
A smoke alarm was present, but disabled. The State Fire Marshal cautioned citizens to never disable or remove batteries from smoke alarms.
The preliminary cause of the fire was determined to be due to electrical failure of a wall outlet where an electrical space heater was plugged in.
The Office of the State Fire Marshal estimated the fire caused $15,000 in damage to the structure and another $10,000 in damage to its contents.
Smart of her to close the door behind herself when leaving but stop taking the batteries out of smoke detectors!