Heather Curtis
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON — (WMAL) The Jan. 19 fire that killed Don and Sandra Pyle along with four of their grandchildren and burned the couple’s Annapolis mansion to the ground started accidentally under a dry Christmas tree in the home’s great room.
“Specifically, a probable high resistance connection inside the floor receptacle under the tree subsequently ignited the plastic sheet and/or decorative blanket/tree skirt, which in turn ignited the Christmas tree,” said a 43-page report released Wednesday by the Annapolis Fire Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
ATF Special Agent David Cheplak stressed the 14-foot tree in the home on Childs Point Road burned quickly because it hadn’t been watered consistently and was very dry. It was put up Dec. 8. The report said not long before the fire the tree was steadily dropping needles, and it’s branches were drooping. The couple planned to take the tree down the day after the fire.
As part of the investigation, three three Fraser Fir trees from the same farm as the Pyle’s tree that were a similar size were set on fire. That test found the trees with drier needles burned faster.
Two trees were watered once a week and the third watered continuously. The tree that was watered weekly and had a 32 percent moisture content started burning in 30 seconds. The other tree watered weekly that had a 15 percent moisture content went up in flames after 5 seconds. The tree watered regularly took 7 minutes to catch fire.
The Pyle’s home did have an alarm system at the time of the fire. It alerted a central monitoring facility that there was fire on the first and second floor at 3:28 a.m. Two seconds later that fire had spread to the basement. The central monitoring facility called the Pyles to alert them but got no answer.
Firefighters arrived at the mansion at 3:42 a.m. The fire was under control by 7.
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