A mansion fire in Annapolis likely killed six people in a Maryland family as it burned the 16,000-square-foot gated home to the ground early Monday morning.
"From the family, we know who's unaccounted for," Anne Arundel County Fire Department spokesman Capt. Russ Davies
told NBC News. "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."
According to the Capital Gazette, Severn's Lower School’s Chesapeake Campus was closed Tuesday in response to the fire. School Headmaster Douglas Lagarde sent a letter home to parents saying that Don and Sandy Pyle, the owners of the home, had perished along with their four grandchildren. It did not cite a source of information regarding the deaths.
Firefighters responded to the scene on Childs Point Road around 3 a.m., and had put it out by 7 a.m. The nearest fire hydrant was over a mile away from the home, so fire crews responded with water tankers and even a fire boat.
Smoke detectors from the home's security system alerted firefighters to the blaze, who soon received a phone call from a neighbor who also reported seeing flames burst from the house. There did not appear to be any man-made distress calls made from the home itself.
Because of the size of the fire, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives is assisting the local fire department in its ongoing investigation.
The home, often referred to as "The Castle" by neighbors, was built in 2005, and worth an estimated $6 million. Don Pyle was the chief operating officer for ScienceLogic.
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