This Tuesday, like every other Tuesday, meant bingo at the Gamber and Community Fire House, and with only two firefighters on hand, a simple non-emergency call soon turned into a full card of firefighting.
"We were staging out front ready to go on the call waiting on an officer to show up when a passerby pulled up real quick to the ambulance and shouted to them that there was a fire back here on Niner Road," said Clay Myers, a spokesman for the company.
Images show the two-story farmhouse, which was fully involved in fire, just a thousand feet behind the firehouse.
Fire engines, tankers and other equipment from throughout the county and neighboring Baltimore County joined in the battle, and it took an hour and a half to put the fire out.
Fortunately, no one was living in the house as it was in the process of being renovated.
Volunteers had just geared down, returned to their respective homes and caught a few hours of sleep when the same district, which may experience two fires in any given month, got a call for a second one on the same shift.
"The next alarm was just after five this morning for another house fire just up the road still in Gamber's district for a house fire," said Myers.
It appears embers from the fireplace at a home on Nicholson Road sparked a fire in the attic, which then spread to the roof forcing the one person inside that home to evacuate.
Many of the same firefighters from the first fire now worked two hours extinguishing the second one---a case of deja vu in a district, which rarely handles that many in a single month.
"Within 12 hours, two working fires out here in Carroll County," said Myers.
The first fire caused an estimated $200,000, while the second one caused about $50,000, but fortunately, no one suffered injuries in either fire.
