Woman dies, man badly burned in explosion that levels house near Annapolis

A woman died and a man was badly burned in a home explosion just outside Annapolis on Wednesday afternoon, fire officials said.

First responders were called to the 1100 block of Green Holly Drive, a residential neighborhood in the Cape St. Claire area, at 12:17 p.m. Wednesday, Anne Arundel County Fire Department spokesperson Jennifer Macallair told The Banner.

Larry Schultz, an assistant fire chief, told reporters that crews arrived three minutes later to find the home blown to pieces and debris strewn throughout the street.

“You just heard this loud boom, not like a transformer. It was something I hadn’t heard before,” neighbor Cathy Meyer told WJZ, a media partner of The Baltimore Banner. “I’m outside watching my house shake.”

Authorities said a man and a woman were at the home when the explosion happened.

Neighbors saw a woman outside the home near the driveway and leapt into action, pulling her farther away from the home as she was in cardiac arrest. Responding medics administered aid until she died.

The man was located inside the home. Schultz said he “suffered some significant burns and was lifted by air” to the John Hopkins Burn Center at Bayview.

Neighbors had observed him working outside prior to the blast.

The names of the victims were not immediately released. Officials believe they lived in the house.

According to Schultz, the homeowner had received a propane delivery just one hour before the explosion. He couldn’t definitively say the propane caused the explosion, but fire officials were investigating it.

Erick Jones, a spokesperson for the Anne Arundel County Fire Department, said Wednesday evening that firefighters located an exterior, above-ground propane tank on the back right side of the home. Officials contacted a representative of the gas company and confirmed it was at the home filling the propane tank roughly an hour before the explosion, Jones said.

When propane explodes, it doesn’t necessarily cause visible flames but produces high heat that can burn someone exposed to it.

Neighbors living next to the home and across the street were evacuated. Their homes sustained minimal damage, but shards of glass and pieces of wood littered their front yards and the street.

Authorities had sent for a search-and-rescue dog from the District of Columbia fire department to help determine whether anyone else was inside the structure. Jones confirmed late Wednesday that no one else was found in the rubble.

Schultz had asked nearby residents to avoid the scene.

“We are still having readings of propane in that structure, so we don’t want anybody down there in that area,” he said Wednesday afternoon.

Crews visited other homes to make sure there wasn’t a larger issue, and all were free of propane gas and other issues, Schultz said.

He said many homes in the county are supplied by natural gas but some rely on propane or a combination of both.

Crews also treated a police officer with a leg injury and a neighbor suffering from exhaustion.

“Kudos to the neighbors that were outside and came to help, to assist the first person,” Schultz said. He also praised firefighters for aiding the second victim out of an unstable structure amid uncontrolled gas issues.

About 55 emergency personnel responded to the incident, including crews from the city of Annapolis and the Naval Academy.

Aerial footage showed a giant pile of wood, clothes and chairs at the explosion site.

Anne Arundel Police temporarily closed Green Holly Drive.

This is at least the second explosion at an Annapolis-area home this summer.

In June, a 77-year-old man was injured in a shed explosion in the 3000 block of Friends Road. Fire officials said the man had been mixing chemicals.

This article has been updated to state that neighbors pulled the female victim, who was outside, farther away from the house.