At 0559 hours Station 14 was alerted for an undetermined fire in the area of Maxi-Mulch. Eng. 143 immediately responded with Chief 14A and 5 Firefighters. While enroute, Charles County advised Chief 14A they were taking numerous calls and upgraded to a working building fire dispatch. Shortly after, Eng. 143 arrived on the scene and advised communications no buildings were involved, it was a large debris fire. Chief 14A requested several more tankers. Chief 14 responded with Eng. 141, arrived shortly there after establishing the Newburg Command with Chief 14A having operations. Two hand lines were immediately placed in service by Eng. 143 and a special request was made for NDW Dahlgren Truck 28. The Weppes (foam) System from Company 4 Nanjamoy was also requested. Eng. 102 supplied Eng. 143 and Truck 28 with water. Numerous tankers from three surrounding counties assisted the operation with copeous amounts of water hauled from the Morgantown Power Plant. NDW Dahlgren Truck 28 set up ladder pipe operations for over two hours. After consulting with the Department of Natural Resources, Maryland Department of Environment, and the Health Department, a burn permit was given to the owner of Maxi-Mulch and was advised to seperate the pile and Forestry remained on the scene for fire watch and Utility 14 remained on the scene as a result of numerous 911 calls after the incident was over. The entire incident lasted over 7 hours.
At this time, we would like to thank the responding units that operated on the fire gound and for the fill in's.
