Chevy Chase Nursing Home Fire Injures 4

Four people, including a man in his nineties, were injured last night in a fire at a nursing home in the Chevy Chase area of Montgomery County, a fire department spokesman said.

All four victims apparently suffered smoke inhalation, and one suffered relatively minor burns in the fire, which was reported about 8:30 p.m. in the Manor Care Chevy Chase nursing facility in the 8700 block of Jones Mill Road.

About 100 firefighters were sent, filling the quiet residential neighborhood with trucks, sirens and flashing lights "as far as the eye can see," a neighbor said.

The fire broke out in a second-floor room, said county fire department spokesman Pete Piringer. He said a fluorescent light apparently malfunctioned and fell on a bed. Piringer said sprinklers in the facility, a complex of one- and two-story brick wings, kept the fire in check.

The resident who was burned apparently was in the room where the fire broke out. Capt. Gregory Franklin, who went to the room, said he encountered "a wall of smoke that you could not penetrate without a mask." He said he and another firefighter found one resident on the floor and carried him out. They returned and carried another resident from a bed.

Piringer said that in addition to the man in his nineties, the injured included two other men and a woman, all in their eighties. All were taken to hospitals. None was identified.

He said he understood that other residents near where the fire broke out were moved inside the facility, which housed 140 people.