A townhouse fire in Calvert County’s Bayview Hills community Monday night was traced to a self-installed solar panel system, according to the North Beach Volunteer Fire Department, though automatic fire sprinklers are credited with keeping the blaze from spreading into an upstairs bedroom.
Calvert County Dispatch alerted North Beach (Company 1), Dunkirk (Company 5), Huntingtown (Company 6) and Anne Arundel County’s Companies 42 and 9 at 8:31 p.m. Monday for a reported house fire in the 8100 block of Moffat Run. Engine 11, Tower 1 and Chief 1B arrived to find an active fire in the rear of the reported address, with Engine 12 arriving shortly after.
Engine 11 laid a 4-inch supply line from a hydrant at Moffat Run and Mears Bend and moved to the rear of the townhouse row to begin fire attack. The crew advanced a 1½-inch attack line to knock down visible fire, then entered through the garage and moved upstairs to check for extension, while the engine’s driver pulled a second attack line to hold the exterior fire in check. Tower 1’s crew, along with Engine 12’s crew, entered from the front of the row to search the building and check for extension.
Chief 1B established command and, after fire was found to have extended up the building’s exterior and into the attic, requested a working fire dispatch, bringing additional units from Prince Frederick (Company 2), St. Leonard (Company 7) and Prince George’s County Engine 820. Chief 5B was assigned as interior supervisor directing operations inside the main fire building, while Chief 6 supervised the delta exposure side; crews from those companies advanced additional attack lines to cut off extension into adjoining units and searched for any occupants. Chief 1 and Chief 1A provided command support throughout the incident.
At the height of the response, roughly 65 firefighters were on scene. Units arrived within four minutes of dispatch and had water on the fire within three minutes of arrival, achieving control on all levels, including the attic, in 18 minutes. The fire was largely confined to the initial address, though adjoining units sustained some fire, smoke and water damage. No injuries were reported.
Officials determined the fire originated from a self-installed solar panel system. The homes are equipped with automatic fire sprinklers, which activated on the second floor and prevented the fire from extending into a rear upstairs bedroom. The American Red Cross was called to assist displaced residents from the fire’s originating address and the two adjoining units.
North Beach VFD thanked its mutual aid response partners and urged residents to follow proper installation and maintenance procedures for electrical equipment, including solar systems. Monday’s fire echoes concerns Calvert County officials raised in 2023 about the safety of rooftop solar installations, when the county attorney told commissioners the state was taking related safety concerns seriously amid growing residential adoption of solar and battery systems.
