A 54-year-old Pasadena resident died Wednesday afternoon after his home caught fire, according to the Anne Arundel County Fire Department.
John Salvatore Billing was killed in the blaze on the 7900 block of Central Road in Pasadena, where he lived with his mother, the fire department said in a news release.
Fire crews were summoned to the home at about 1 p.m. Wednesday when a neighbor from across Back Creek reported they saw a house on fire across the water, according to the county fire agency.
When crews arrived, the single-family home was “mostly involved” with fire and smoke, the fire department said. Billing died on the scene after firefighters searched the residence for the 54-year-old, who was a wheelchair user. His mother was not home during the fire, according to the fire department.
It took about an hour for firefighters to control the blaze, the fire department said.
Anne Arundel County and Annapolis investigators have not yet determined the cause of the fire or estimated the cost of the damage.
This is the first fire fatality in Anne Arundel County this year.
Seven people died in seven different fires throughout Anne Arundel County in 2022, a dramatic, uncharacteristic spike compared to recent years. There were just two fire fatalities from one incident in 2021 and three deaths from three separate events in 2020, according to the county fire department.
