A Pylesville family was displaced after an electrical failure on Sunday afternoon sparked a fire that killed their pet and destroyed their mobile home.
Just before 3:30 pm on Sunday, emergency personnel were dispatched to the 4700 block of Fawn Grove Road in Pylesville for the report of a dwelling fire in a single-wide mobile home.
A neighbor discovered the fire, which originated in a rear bedroom and was blamed on electrical failure.
Thirty firefighters from the Norrisville Volunteer Fire Company responded and had the single-alarm blaze under control within 20 minutes.
The State Fire Marshal’s Office estimated the fire caused $25,000 in damage to the structure and another $75,000 in damage to its contents. There were no reported injuries, but one dog perished in the fire.
The occupants were not home at the time of the fire and have been displaced along with their four children. Harford County Disaster Assistance, friends, and family are assisting them.
Photo courtesy of Neil Schmidt
Joe Sayles says
Where’s the budget for road repair in Harford County???
Sad says
Someone on the scene took like 50 pictures of the place in various stages of burning down without a drop of water being put on the fire. Guess the photos were a priority…..
Their hear says
More details? Was the person not able to, as in, an “engine” wasn’t there?
All the more reason to have at least TWO full time/’career’ Harford County government fire stations at the southern and northern end of the County to better serve the citizens.
Folks, it’s not going to solve everything but you can be damn sure “driver only” won’t happen.
Change my mind that Harford county does not need better fire/rescue protection
LOL says
If we’re not going to get full time paid fire protection the county government needs pass legislation to step in and have more oversight over all the fire companies.
Just this past weekend Abingdon Fire Company was having some sort of community event where the general public goes to the station.
I rode by once and people are parking everywhere on the shoulder of a 40mph road near their station, walking out in traffic No signs warning drivers ANYWHERE in either directions up the road. No cones.
Completely utterly ridiculous these people can botch traffic control and create such a hazard.
I did come back an hour later and they had 1 person who appeared to be struggling with traffic control because the amount of people coming and going.
The Communicator says
LOL, Why don’t you volunteer your services? You are probably not aware of the amount of hours “these people”, spend training, pulling duty and addressing other departmental responsibilities. It is all done in an effort to help serve and protect our neighbors and our community. The number of volunteers and money are always a concern. That is the reason fire companies host events like this is to raise funds and to also promote awareness of the department and our mission. If you don’t want to or can’t volunteer, a monetary donation would always be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
LOL says
I’d rather have my taxes raised to pay for these services.
You’re making up excuses and has no relevance in my reply.
Where does this address the expected parking and traffic concerns ahead of time on Abingdon Road? It doesn’t.
Tell me why nothing was done ahead of time? No warning signs on Abingdon Road. No cones, no flashing lights. Just one guy wearing high viz apparel when I came back an hour later.
The Communicator says
I think you just look for reasons to bitch and complain. The traffic was not that bad.
LOL says
I didn’t look for anything, I saw no warning of traffic hazards and made a comment about it. End of story. That’s your opinion that traffic wasn’t “that bad.” I never made a comment on the congestion, which was abnormally high for the average Saturday late morning early afternoon.
You seemed needed to reply to me about the dedication of volunteers. Im with you, that’s great, but it still doesn’t answer my question.
Counting Beans says
I think Abingdon should have handed over their Edgewood station to the beast mode volunteers of Harford County years ago, beast mode being Joppa-mag.
Should have built their main at 924/Abingdon Road.
Closed down the Long bar Harbor station and built another big station right on Route 40 near the 543 overpass.
Brenda says
Agree, I always try to support Abingdon Fire. They do a great job, hardworking and well trained. I may not be able to do their type of work but always contribute. My dad taught me this as a kid in Middle River. I know he gave to them over 40 or 50 years.
Bye Felicia says
get fire insurance
Their hear says
The problem I see with current day Harford Fire/Rescue is that very few people want to volunteer even with increasing population, and it’s normal to get half staffed (or less) fire department apparatus from multiple stations away to be the first arriving crew. The other issue is that training and staffing requirements have pushed a lot of people away from the volunteer service.
While perfection is impossible … the crack of discrepancies seems to be getting larger and the only response to the question is “Why don’t you volunteer?”
The time to start a big sit down with everyone involved in Fire Service in this county to realistically come to mutual agreement that “career” fire service is inevitable and unfortunately going to be placed near some others volunteer’s station.
A in B.A. says
The decline in Volunteer FF and EMS is a nationwide problem, not just in Harford County. And has been for quite some time, sadly.
https://www.governing.com/topics/public-justice-safety/gov-volunteer-firefighters-department.html
Counting Beans says
I’ve been thinking what this county needs to do is get all the volunteer fire departments together and just rename everyone to “Harford County Volunteer Fire Department” and paint all the equipment red. That way most of the general public won’t know which station the piece of equipment came from.
Joel says
Looks like we have some grilled kitty!
Brian Oates says
It looked like a dump anyway.