Around 3:30 am on Saturday, May 12, fire crews responded to a house fire at 11405 Howard Court in Beltsville. According to the PG County Fire Department, when crews arrived the majority of the 2-story house was in flames. The fire was intense enough to prevent firefighters from entering the residence right away.
A neighbor, Kathy Mellott, told NBC 4 they were “devastated because they didn’t know anyone was in there.” When the firefighters were finally able to go into the home, they found certain areas were unreachable because of the damage. They did find one person, 35-year-old Sally Ann Quesenberry, deceased inside the residence. Her three children were not home at the time.
Fire crews did not find any smoke alarms inside the house, according to Mark Brady, spokesman for the Prince George’s County Fire and EMS Department. Although the cause is still being investigated, the common denominator between this and other fatal house fires this year seems to be the lack of a working smoke detector.