08/11/2023 Engine 2-1 and Chief 2 run Harwood house fire. Engine 2-1 arrives first due and Chief 2 assumes water supply officer along with Engine 3 at the dump site. Updated calculations were approximately 145,000 gallons of water shuttled from a nearby farm pond.

HARWOOD, Md. — Anne Arundel County fire officials said crews arrived to a fully involved house fire in the Harwood area.

Emergency crews were called to a house Trails End Road. The fire was placed under control, and no one was home at the time of the fire, officials said. According to neighbors, the man who lives at the property was at a doctor’s appointment. He is now staying at a friend’s apartment.

The neighborhood is in an area where there are no fire hydrants, so firefighters have been bringing in equipment to draft water from a pool.

“This is a non-hydrant area, which means that we have to set up a whole water supply system. Tankers come in and they dump the water to the structure. The crews did a phenomenal job getting that set up quickly today and getting water on the fire,” Anne Arundel County fire Capt. Jennifer Macallair told 11 News.

Officials said crews have used more than 100,000 gallons of water to fight the fire. It took about 66 firefighters to knock the fire down in an hour.

There appeared to be a debris field around the house. Neighbors told 11 News that they believe a propane tank and oxygen tank exploded. However, fire officials are still investigating what started the fire.

Paul Lutov, the property owner, told 11 News that the man built the house himself without permits and did not have insurance.

Lutov said county officials had been pressuring him to tear the house down.

“The house was, I would say, the ‘Hoarders’ TV program would have a good time there. So, he never threw anything out,” Lutov told 11 News.

No injuries have been reported, and a cause of the fire remains under investigation.

Story courtesy of Channel 11 news.