This weekend was another busy weekend for your Leonardtown Volunteers. Since Friday evening (July 15, 2016) Company 1 responded to an MVA involving a pedestrian, a residential fire alarm, three commercial fire alarms, two personal injury accidents (see thebaynet.com stories below), an outside fire and two landing zones - one that resulted from one of the personal injury accidents.

On Sunday, July 17, 2016 Company 1 hosted an acquired structure burn. The day commenced with multiple evolutions that tested the skills of firefighters from the Leonardtown Volunteer Fire Department and the Naval District Washington Fire Department stationed at NAS Patuxent River. The day culminated when the department safely burned the house down completely.

An acquired structure burn occurs when a citizen of the Leonardtown area buys or owns a property with an existing structure on the premises. If the property owner wants to get rid of the structure and feels inclined, they can donate the structure to the fire department for use as a training building. If the house passes a series of inspections by the chiefs, the department will utilize the house for live-fire, interior training burns. Once the house is no longer safe for interior training evolutions, the department will safely burn the house to the ground. This provides the fire department with a local, safe and cheap training site. This also provides a service to the property owner since we demolish the unwanted structure for free and the owner can write the structure donation off of their taxes. It is a win-win situation for both parties involved.

If you have (or know someone who has) an unwanted structure, please contact your local fire department and inquire about an acquired structure burn. This provides us with an awesome, local training day that keeps us from having to travel away from our first-due area and keeps us from having to pay to use an existing training site. You can contact the Leonardtown Volunteer Fire Department by phone: 301-475-8996, by email: info@lvfd1.org or you can stop by the station on Monday evenings from 7-9 p.m. Please ask to speak to either Chief 1, Chief 1A or Chief 1B.