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It took first responders 10 minutes from the time 911 was called to begin fighting the early-morning Annapolis blaze that killed six people last month, a Fire Department spokesman said Wednesday.
Capt. Russ Davies, the spokesman, said the response time includes the time it took responders to lay 800 feet of hose to fight the blaze, and that 10 minutes was "not abnormal," given the travel distance and road conditions at the time of the fire.
Fire officials initially said the first engine responding to the Jan. 19 blaze arrived about two minutes after being dispatched. Davies said that estimate came anecdotally from firefighters at the scene of the Childs Point Road fire.
The residents, Don and Sandra Pyle, and four of their grandchildren perished in the blaze.
The timeline provided so far indicates the department was first alerted that smoke alarms were going off on the first and second floors of the Pyles' 16,000-square-foot home by a private security company at 3:32 a.m.
As the department's standard response for smoke alarms sounding, a single engine was dispatched to the scene a minute later, Davies said.
That engine, from the Annapolis Fire Department's Forest Drive firehouse, about two miles from the Childs Road house, had arrived and was ready to begin fighting the blaze at 3:42.
Even before that engine arrived, dispatchers received a call from a neighbor at 3:34 to report "the whole house is on fire." At that point, the call was upgraded with a request for additional units. Those units arrived minutes after the Annapolis engine, Davies said.
Fire engines carry about 750 gallons of water, and the first of three tankers carrying thousands of gallons reported arriving about 90 seconds after firefighters had readied the scene, at about 3:44.
The other tankers reported at 3:46 a.m. and 3:49.
Davies said water is generally an issue in areas of the county — such as Childs Point Road — that don't have hydrants. "It takes extra time, extra equipment and extra people to get the water supply in place," he said.
He said a full post-incident analysis would be completed soon.