The occupants were not home at the time of the fire. One dog is missing.
A one-story home in the Molesworth Hills Community near Mount Airy was destroyed by fire on Sunday afternoon.
Personnel and apparatus from Frederick, Carroll, Montgomery and Howard Counties were dispatched at around 2:15 PM to the 12,000 block of Monnier Court just off of Moxley Valley Drive, and found heavy fire coming from the home. They spent about 40-minutes bringing the flames under control, according to fire and rescue spokesman Steve Leatherman.
"We have one fire fighter that was injured. He has refused treatment at the scene. Otherwise, there were no injuries," Leatherman says. He says the fire fighter was hurt when he fell through a collapsing floor. "The floor in the house, a lot of the areas are burned through, real thin. He actually did go through the floor into basement area. I don't how far he down to the basement he went," says Leatherman.
The occupants were not home at the time of the fire, he says.
Right now, an investigation is underway to determine a cause and damage estimate. Leatherman says the house itself is not very safe for anyone to enter. "There's significant damage to the house. It looks like fire's pretty much throughout the house," he says.
Part of the roof near the chimney of the one-story home is gone. Fire fighters had to knock a hole in another part of the roof to vent the flames
One nearby resident, Dick Ishler, says he and his wife were heading out to go shopping when the fire broke out. "We saw an awful lot of smoke, and turned around and saw it was a house fire. And turned around and went shopping again," he says.
Another eyewitness named Jim said he saw the tail end of the fire. "We were at the house. We just heard the sirens and came to see what was going on. When we got here, the fire department was already here, organizing everything. Doing a great job. They were real organized," he says.
Leatherman says fire fighters did enter the home to do an offensive attack on the fire, but had to retreat when it got too dangerous to be inside. "We switched our mode from an offensive to a defensive operation, which basically means we go from an outside mode as opposed to making interior attacks," he says.
Meanwhile, the homeowner is asking the public to help locate one of their missing dogs. Maggie is a 13 year old black and white mixed short haired Border Collie. Neighbors saw her running away from the burning home. The owner says Maggie is in need of medicine.
