LEONARDTOWN, Md. –– The Leonardtown Volunteer Fire Department released a 145-page after-action report on November 6 detailing operational shortcomings that contributed to the line-of-duty death of Firefighter Brice Clayton Trossbach during a June 27, 2023, house fire at 20521 Deer Wood Park Drive. Trossbach, a 25-year-old career firefighter at Naval Air Station Patuxent River and volunteer with Leonardtown and Bay District departments, entered the structure with a backup attack line and became trapped when the first floor collapsed into the basement less than a minute later. Rescue teams freed him after two hours, but he died from multiple traumatic injuries at a local hospital.
The review, conducted by an external Safety Review Committee, examined radio logs, videos, photographs and interviews with 52 personnel to identify factors in St. Mary’s County’s first firefighter LODD in decades. Chief 1 arrived at 4:15 a.m., 11 minutes after the initial 911 call reporting a smoke alarm, and noted heavy fire on the first and second floors extending to the attic during a 360-degree assessment. However, the report found no physical inspection of the walkout basement on Side Charlie, where fire had spread undetected from either an exterior origin or interior basement source, weakening structural supports above.
Without a broadcast incident action plan, arriving units operated without unified direction. Engine 11 deployed a transitional attack line from the front yard, followed by Engine 132 — Trossbach’s unit — advancing a backup through a window. Engine 63, the first-due tanker, flanked to Side Charlie but flowed water opposing the primary lines, as video evidence showed. Crew integrity faltered when Engine 132’s acting captain joined Engine 11’s team on the porch, leaving his two firefighters unsupervised inside, operating 8 to 10 feet apart just beyond the front door. Chief 3B entered briefly but remained near the threshold.
A Mayday call, declared 23 minutes after the collapse by Chief 7A on a separate channel, prompted evacuation orders, but personnel accountability reports lagged another 22 minutes. Rapid intervention team rotations, limited to 20 minutes each amid temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit, suffered from fatigue after 90 minutes and lacked formal tracking. Water supply, reliant on tankers in the non-hydrant area, maintained flow at 500 to 1,000 gallons per minute via a humat valve, though a disconnection error nearly interrupted it.
The committee drew parallels to Frederick County’s 2022 LODD report on Battalion Chief Josh Laird, highlighting recurring issues like incomplete size-ups, uncommunicated strategies and command overload. Human performance factors under stress — time compression reducing decision-making windows and cognitive overload from friction — exacerbated errors, as no officer relayed indicators such as sagging floors or ineffective hose streams. “The majority of recommendations in any LODD report can be linked back to acts, omissions and violations of standing policy or procedure,” the investigators noted.
To address these, the report calls for a centralized governing body with enforcement authority over the county’s seven independent volunteer corporations, which operate without uniform standards despite serving 115,000 residents across 373 square miles. This entity would codify procedures on incident command, radio protocols and risk assessment while preserving corporate autonomy on non-emergency issues, ensuring consistent high-quality service regardless of responding company.
Standard operating guidelines must align with National Fire Protection Association standards, including NFPA 1021 for officer qualifications, requiring all volunteer officers to complete a 40-hour local development school covering fire behavior, building construction, tactics and incident command systems. Annual competency evaluations and a 40-hour Blue Card Command module for chiefs would standardize command practices, with high-resolution simulations reinforcing size-up skills for basements and heavy-fire conditions.
Accountability measures emphasize crew integrity in immediately dangerous to life or health environments: no fewer than two personnel per entry, equipped with assigned radios, maintaining constant voice, touch, sight or radio contact, and entering or exiting as intact units. Self-dispatching in personal vehicles would end to prevent untracked freelancing, replaced by a Duty Chief program scheduling qualified officers for automatic backups on structure fires, ensuring dual command presence via computer-aided dispatch.
Incident management protocols would mandate a standardized initial on-scene report detailing address, structure type, fire conditions and operational mode — offensive, defensive or transitional — before interior operations. A full 360-degree walk-around, including basement access via rear doors, becomes policy, with deviations noted and assignments delegated if the incident commander cannot complete it. Pre-entry briefings must transmit unit counts, entry points and objectives, followed by routine conditions-actions-needs reports to track progress.
For Mayday and rapid intervention responses, the county’s February 2024 Mayday standard operating guideline requires refinement: dedicated channels or talk groups post-declaration, with emergency communications center timers at 15-minute intervals benchmarking rescue benchmarks. Personnel accountability reports follow immediately after any Mayday, practiced in multi-company drills, alongside tactical worksheets for tracking entrants and resources. A senior officer group would oversee after-action reviews and training plans, designating rapid intervention teams explicitly upon Mayday calls.
Water supply operations in non-hydrant areas, comprising 40 percent of incidents, demand dedicated standard operating guidelines assigning water supply officers, dump and fill roles, with initial tankers shuttling via large-diameter hose and appliances like siamese or hydrant valves for seamless connections. Multi-company drills would build proficiency in rural evolutions, from attack line deployment to full shuttle operations, including drafting and fill-site training on pressures and appliances.
St. Mary’s County Volunteer Fire Service has initiated work on these recommendations following briefings to Trossbach’s family, county administration and the Fire Chiefs Association, according to department statements. The Emergency Services Board, currently advisory without enforcement, must evolve to mandate compliance, with implementation targeted through the Fire Board Association by 2026. As call volumes rise with population growth tied to Patuxent River Naval Air Station expansion and Washington commuting, these changes aim to equip volunteers — who staff 13 stations without paid fire personnel — for equitable protection.
Trossbach joined Leonardtown Volunteer Fire Department at 16 as a probationary member, advancing to full status by 18 while volunteering at Bay District. A 2015 Leonardtown High School graduate raised on a family farm, he participated in 4-H and the St. Mary’s County Fair before starting his career at Patuxent River in 2019. Fire Chief Christopher Bell dedicated the report to Trossbach and his family, writing, “This report and the countless hours of work by the Committee are dedicated to Brice and the entire Trossbach family, in hopes that the lessons learned in this report will prevent future tragedies like this in the future.” His service, alongside fiancée Cheyenne and their St. Bernard Molly, embodied the volunteer ethos sustaining Southern Maryland’s fire response.
Administrative Reforms
The push for centralized oversight stems from inconsistencies across corporations, where some resist modern practices amid rising demands. Professional policy developers, such as those from Lexipol, could catalog guidelines on high-hazard topics like basements and gas leaks, reducing volunteer workload while minimizing liability.
Incident Management Details
Training emphasizes understanding fire dynamics through Underwriters Laboratories-Fire Safety Research Institute courses, including “Fighting Basement Fires,” to recognize hidden threats. Tactical supervisors receive defined roles for ongoing size-ups and feedback, supported by command aides and mobile computer-aided dispatch for real-time tracking on single command sheets.
MAYDAY and RIT Enhancements
Drills would simulate channel switches and group assignments for logistics or patient care post-Mayday, fostering collaboration. Cultural enforcement of accountability systems, beyond simple tags, ensures volunteers adhere during high-stress events.
Water Supply Protocols
Full-scale exercises simulate end-to-end operations, honing inter-company tool compatibility to prevent interruptions like those narrowly avoided in the Deer Wood Park incident.