6 feared dead as four-alarm fire guts Maryland home

After a four-alarm fire tore through a large Maryland house early Monday, there are worries that several people may have been killed.

Based on information from relatives, six people linked to the 16,000-square-foot home outside Annapolis are unaccounted for, Anne Arundel County Fire Capt. Russ Davies told the Associated Press.

“If you look at the damage, you know, it would not be a stretch to think that if there were occupants that they did not survive the fire,” he added. He did not specify who might have been inside.

The waterfront property is the principal residence of owners Donald and Sandra Pyle, according to information from the state Department of Assessments and Taxation. Records show that the home had a stone exterior and was built in 2005.

Last fall, Donald Pyle was named chief operating officer of ScienceLogic, a Virginia maker of cloud computing software, according to the Associated Press.

The Fire Department said that it learned of the blaze about 3:30 a.m. local time and that it took hours to bring the flames under control.

Firefighters tried to look for any people inside the home, but it was too dangerous, Davies told WBAL-TV.

“As soon as they made entry, they had floor collapse. They had structural failure of the roof coming down on them. So they were pushed back out of the house,”; he said.

One complication of battling the fire was the lack of hydrants in the area, Davies told WBAL.

“There’s no water supply back here, so anything we’re using to fight the fire, we’ve had to bring to the scene,” Davies said, adding that they used tankers and a fire boat.

Property damage “will be in the millions of dollars,” the Fire Department said.

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