Several members of the West Virginia National Guard on patrol in Washington, D.C., helped suppress the spread of a fire that could have been a very dangerous situation, according to a report from the Joint Task Force-D.C.
Three West Virginia National Guard members on a routine patrol along Massachusetts Avenue Northwest noticed a faint smell of smoke drifting from a nearby apartment building, according to the report.
U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Brett Fries, U.S. Army Sgt. Devin Cantwell, and Pfc. Tyler E. Farley reacted to intervene.
“We were on patrol and thought we saw smoke, and I asked them if they smelled anything,” Fries, who is from Martinsburg, told Joint Task Force D.C., which is the umbrella organization for the ongoing mission in the nation’s capital.
“We stood there for a minute just to see if it happened again, and you could see it start rolling more and more out the window. So, Farley and I ran into the building while Sgt. Cantwell went to the fire station.”
An apartment building resident helped Fries and Farley enter the complex, where they discovered a dryer that had caught fire in the second-floor laundry room. The blaze had already spread to the back wall, according to the report.
“The smoke was coming out the second story of an apartment building,” Farley said in the report. “We went upstairs and saw that it was coming out of the laundry room, so we got one of the residents to open the door for us.”
The responders located a fire extinguisher in the building, extinguished the flames, escorted residents to safety and had the fire under control by the time D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services arrived.
“The building probably would have gone up [in flames],” Cantwell said in the report.
About 175 members of the West Virginia National Guard are remaining in Washington, D.C., on a voluntary basis as the new year begins.
On August 11, President Donald Trump declared a “crime emergency” for the District of Columbia, and five days later Governor Patrick Morrisey deployed 300 to 400 members of the West Virginia National Guard for support.
In November, state officials announced that the West Virginia National Guard would continue to participate in the presence in Washington, D.C., through at least Dec. 31.
Morrisey, in that announcement, described a re-evaluation of extending the mission every quarter through the end of fiscal 2026.
In an update this week, the West Virginia National Guard’s public affairs office provided numbers for the mission through February.
“Approximately 175 volunteer WV National Guardsmen will remain on duty through the end of Feb 2026,” according to the update.
“The mission of the WV Guard members will remain the same: to contribute to the safety of the District by conducting static and roving presence patrols. They have not, nor will they be contributing to any type of beautification efforts.”