Local

Maryland homeowner uses smoke to battle snakes, burns down house

No humans were hurt. The fate of the snakes is unknown.



A homeowner in the Dickerson area tried to get rid of snakes using smoke but started a fire that caused $1 million in damage, fire officials said. (Montgomery County Fire)
By Dana Hedgpeth and Dan Morse
December 3, 2021|Updated December 3, 2021 at 8:17 p.m. EST

Part of the homeowner’s plan — a decidedly small part — made sense. Snakes have a great sense of smell, experts say, and the odor of smoke, in theory, could prompt them to slither off.

Beyond that, the idea of setting a series of small fires in a residential basement to drive out a snake infestation went horribly wrong. The smoke led to flames that led to a massive fire that destroyed a million dollar home in Maryland.

Officials in Montgomery County late Thursday revealed the unusual cause of the Nov. 23 blaze along Big Woods Road in the relatively spread-out northwestern part of the county. Investigators do not believe open flames were part of the objective. Rather, the Dickerson-area homeowner started the fires in smoke-emitting metal containers, fire officials said.

“That’s not a technique I was familiar with,” said local wildlife biologist Dan Rauch. “I certainly recommend something else for dealing with snakes — starting with calling a professional.”

No one was home when the fire broke out. Seventy-five firefighters were needed to put it out. No humans were hurt.

[Snake slithers out of car’s air vent as Virginia woman is driving]

A full accounting of the snakes remains unknown.

{snip}

Link to tweet

{snip}

By Dana Hedgpeth
Dana Hedgpeth is a Washington Post reporter, working in the early morning to report on traffic, crime and other local issues. She joined The Post in 1999. She's American Indian and an enrolled member of the Haliwa-Saponi tribe of N.C. Twitter https://twitter.com/postmetrogirl

By Dan Morse
Dan Morse covers courts and crime in Montgomery County. He arrived at the paper in 2005, after reporting stops at the Wall Street Journal, Baltimore Sun and Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser, where he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. He is the author of "The Yoga Store Murder." Twitter https://twitter.com/morsedan