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tw, Christmas tree would have been my guess, but the fire turns out to have been arson-murder-suicide. The lady who owned the place sent a message to her employer confessing (not sure how the message was sent). Apparently she was afraid she was going to be caught embezzling money, which she'd been doing for quite some time. Her mother who lived with her died in the fire. Nasty.
The firewall held, but the roof of the unit next to the burning one also burned somewhat. And the two units next to the burning one were reportedly pretty heavily damaged by water and smoke (one firefighter said the unit next door was "all but a loss").
The unit which burned had the back wall, chimney and a little bit of the end wall intact when I saw it, but they demolished that with a backhoe while it was still burning. All that stands now is the brick facade shared with the next building, the garage, the basement walls, and the deck.
One of the news reports mentioned favorable wind conditions. Couldn't have been better, really -- this was an end unit at the edge of the development, facing a park across First Avenue in Trappe. The wind was blowing more or less directly towards the park from the unit, so nothing else was in the path. If it had been blowing the other way, the fire would have burned the entire set of eight townhouses to the ground, and possibly jumped to other buildings from there. If it had been blowing towards the front of the house, it might have spread to the homes on the other side of the street.
Beestie: This is Trappe, Montgomery County, PA, not Montgomery County, MD, so you are pretty far away.
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