Firefighters struggled to get enough water to put out a fire in the Town of Chevy Chase on Friday afternoon, Chief Steven Lohr, acting chief of the county's fire and rescue service, said at a meeting of the Montgomery County Council's Transportation, Infrastructure, Energy and Environment Committee on Monday morning.
The fire broke out in a house under construction at the corner of Leland and 45th streets, Assistant Chief Scott Graham of the Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service tweeted on Friday shortly after 2 p.m.
The fire was visible throughout Chevy Chase, David Heyman tweeted on Friday afternoon.
A photo tweeted by Justin Fidler showed flames and smoke above the town.
There were no injuries, Graham added.
Because the house under construction did not yet have a full fire mitigation system, and because the house—at 6,000 square feet—is much larger than the sort of house for which the neighborhood's fire hydrant system was designed, firefighters struggled to expand the water supply to put out the fire, Lohr said.
Most of the original houses in the neighborhood are only about 2,400 square feet, Lohr explained.
The cause of the fire is still under investivation, Graham tweeted on Friday and Lohr said on Monday morning.
Lohr was at the meeting of the county council's Transportation, Infrastructure, Energy and Environment Committee to talk about the fire and rescue service's response to the 60-inch water main break in the Chevy Chase Lake neighborhood on March 18, 2013. Read more about why the water main broke.
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