A detached garage in La Plata was destroyed by fire Friday night, causing an estimated $70,000 in damage, according to the Office of the State Fire Marshal.
Firefighters were called to the 10400 block of La Plata Road at approximately 8:45 p.m. Friday after residents smelled smoke and noticed a glow from flames outside their home, fire officials said. The La Plata Volunteer Fire Department served as the primary responding agency, dispatching Engine 11, Truck 1 and Chief 1A, and was joined by mutual aid crews from neighboring departments. In all, 54 firefighters responded to the single-alarm fire.
Crews brought the blaze under control in about 45 minutes, according to the fire marshal’s office. The fire was contained to the 40-by-30-foot garage with no extension to the nearby residence, and no injuries or displacements were reported. Investigators estimated the loss at $50,000 to the structure and $20,000 to its contents.
The garage did not have smoke alarms, a fire alarm system or sprinklers installed, fire officials said. Investigators determined the fire originated inside the garage, but the cause remains under investigation.
The response drew on mutual aid from neighboring Charles County fire companies, a standard practice for larger structure fires that allows departments to bring in additional crews, apparatus and water supply beyond what a single station can provide.
The La Plata Volunteer Fire Department traces its roots to 1929, when 34 La Plata residents formally organized the department at a meeting in the county courthouse, building on efforts by a local fire commission formed a few years earlier to address the town’s lack of organized fire protection. Nearly a century later, the department remains an all-volunteer agency serving La Plata and surrounding parts of Charles County, and it also provides the county’s dedicated structural and trench collapse rescue team in addition to routine firefighting and vehicle rescue calls. Like other Charles County fire and rescue companies, La Plata VFD is a member of the Charles County Volunteer Fire and EMS Association, which coordinates mutual aid and training standards among the county’s volunteer departments.
State fire officials frequently point to gaps in detection equipment, like the missing smoke alarms in Friday’s fire, as a factor that can allow fires in detached structures to grow substantially before being discovered, since garages and other outbuildings are typically unoccupied and set apart from a home’s main living space. The National Fire Protection Association recommends installing smoke alarms in any structure used to store vehicles, tools or flammable materials, in addition to the alarms required inside homes, as an added layer of early warning even when a building isn’t occupied around the clock.
Anyone with information about the cause of Friday’s fire is asked to contact the Office of the State Fire Marshal’s Southern Regional Office at 410-414-3615.
La Plata, the county seat of Charles County, has a population of about 10,000 and sits roughly in the geographic center of the county, giving its volunteer fire department a first-due coverage area that extends into surrounding unincorporated communities beyond the town’s borders.
