Although the ashes have settled in the remains of a Davidsonville commercial building devastated by a fire earlier this month, some southern Anne Arundel County residents have lingering concerns about adequate water supplies and staffing in their community fire departments.
Nearly 100 firefighters responded to the March 8 fire that raged through the Statewide Septic & Backhoe and Mid-Atlantic Outdoor Equipment building on Central Avenue. Firefighters worked for three hours to bring the blaze under control, using roughly 150,000 gallons of water to douse the flames coming through the roof.
But to Alvin Sutphin, who owns the septic business, things should have gone differently.
“Somebody made a bad call,” he said during a March 22 community meeting at the Harwood/Lothian Fire Station.
Sutphin was among several dozen residents who came out in full force to question the decisions made that night, seeking answers from Anne Arundel County Fire Chief Trisha Wolford and County Executive Steuart Pittman.
Fire departments that responded to the scene did not begin spraying water on the fire until an hour had passed, Sutphin said. A tanker truck stationed at the Riva Volunteer Fire Company, the closest department, sat unused because the company didn’t have the staff to drive it. A 60,000-gallon water tank that Sutphin was required to install underground near the building almost two decades ago also went untouched because it was deemed too dangerous.
Now, caution tape lines the perimeter of the structure; the roof is partially collapsed. Inside, charred shells of trucks remain. While no estimate of damage was available from the Anne Arundel County Fire Department, Sutphin said he lost everything his business he owned, including millions of dollars in tools. The business, in operation since 1965, installs and maintains septic drainage systems and performs sewer, water utilities and excavation work.
“I got insurance, but we’re two weeks into it and I’m still digging in my pocket trying to get enough tools and equipment for my guys to continue to work,” he said March 22. “We support 56 families.”
As Sutphin begins to recover, he believes the blaze brought a larger issue to the surface: community safety.
More water, more firefighters
At the outset of Friday’s discussion, Wolford, who has led the department since 2019, acknowledged the county’s need to improve following the Davidsonville fire.
“We’re not the best in the world, we’re not the best in the country, but we’re trying to make plans to every year get better and better, and that’s the most important thing,” Wolford said.
Over the last five years, Anne Arundel County has added 72 new firefighters, bringing the total close to 1,000, and purchased over 70 new fire vehicles, including trucks, engines, tankers and ambulances. While those increases have been spread across the county’s 31 fire stations, each faces different challenges.
In southern Anne Arundel, water supply is the problem. The county’s rural areas have few water hydrants readily available in emergencies. However, tanker trucks, which provide more water to support the limited supply of fire engines, can be especially useful in areas without hydrants.
Under the terms of a long-standing agreement between the Riva Volunteer Fire Company and the Anne Arundel County Fire Department, the local station provided a tanker while the county provided a dedicated staff driver. That agreement stemmed from the fire company’s decision in the 1990s to staff the station with career personnel to guarantee consistent staffing amid a shortage of volunteers, according to David Carr, a former career firefighter and president of the Riva Volunteer Fire Company.
But in 2020, other needs prompted Wolford to relocate the driver previously assigned to Riva to the Harwood/Lothian station.
Now, if the Riva Volunteer Fire Company is the first called to a nearby fire, the station’s driver takes two other firefighters on the fire engine to the scene, leaving the tanker at the station. It isn’t always sitting unused, though. If fires needing a tanker response occur in other areas, Riva’s tanker could be utilized, but its engine will remain parked.
The situation is common throughout many fire departments in the county and region, Wolford said, due to a cross-staffing model that makes one crew responsible for staffing multiple resources. The resource assigned to an emergency depends on the location and what’s needed most at the scene — and for the blaze in Davidsonville, it was the engine.
Though photos posted on social media that night showed trucks with ladders up and no water coming out, Wolford said, firefighters were waiting for a tower ladder, which would allow firefighters to get closer to the blaze on the roof.
“You have to have the right tool to do the right job,” she said.
Responding firefighters also decided not to use the 60,000-gallon water drafting tank on site. The tank, located roughly 50 feet from the building, was within a potential collapse zone, Wolford added. Instead, firefighters connected to a 300,000-gallon county public works water tank further down Central Avenue.
“What I’m telling you is I was unwilling to risk one of my firefighter’s [lives] and put them right there with that engine when I knew we could go half a mile and get sustainable water,” she said.
Sutphin and Rob Wilson, who owns Mid-Atlantic Outdoor Equipment, remained critical of what they perceived as the department’s slow initial response in handling down the fire.
Although Wilson is appreciative of firefighters’ efforts, to him, it seemed like many things went wrong that night.
“Misdirection, miscommunication, not taking people who know the building inside and out telling you and advising you on where to be and what to do, or advising you on what to look out for,” he said, later adding: “Now I gotta problem solve my best three months of the year that carry me through the winter. Where the hell do I get that money?”
Frank Tremel, a former volunteer chief for the Galesville Fire Station, urged county officials to consider operating more than one tanker in the southern portion of the county.
“Without water, you can have all of the firefighters you want, but they’re not going to be able to do their job,” he said.
That will take funding, Carr said.
“I think we know what the fix is, and it’s the root: money,” he said. “You as a group, when you leave here tonight, we can’t forget about this because we need to advocate.”
Moving forward
The path forward may not be easy, especially finding funding to hire someone qualified to drive the tanker. Fire personnel, whether career or volunteer, who drive tankers and engines don’t need a commercial driver’s license, but must be qualified as firefighters.
Anne Arundel County Council member Shannon Leadbetter, who represents District 7 in south county, said many residents had reached out after the fire.
“Folks are scared — you’re scared, I’m scared,” she said. “You want to go to bed at night, you want to get up in the morning and go about your daily business with confidence and knowing that the resources are in place to keep you safe.”
Reaching a point where all south county residents feel safe will take work. From an evaluation of the fire department’s needs and priorities across the county to Leadbetter’s advocacy for the area in discussions with Pittman and the County Council, efforts to improve service will require collaboration and funding.
Pittman emphasized that changes in one location mean changes in other departments, too, and the county wants to serve all of the areas without water. The Jacobsville station in Pasadena and the West Annapolis station are the next two in line for being allocated a driver for their tankers ahead of Riva, Wolford said.
Some changes are already occurring. In a weekly letter sent to county residents on Thursday, Pittman shared that a new underground water tank was recently installed at the Farm Bureau building in Davidsonville, supplementing 163 other tanks in south county where no public water is available, he wrote.
Wolford closed the community meeting with an apology.
“I commit to you that I’m going to do better, and that’s all I can give you as a commitment, that we have done good, but we need to do great,” she said. “And I’m going to do as much as I can to get you all there.”
For Wilson and other business owners, being heard was an important step.
“Them being there and addressing [it] “It was better than nothing,” Wilson said.
