Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service personnel responded to a fire at the Ellis Bethesda apartment tower at 4918 St. Elmo Avenue this afternoon. Around 3:20 PM, a vehicle fire was reported in the building's underground parking garage. Firefighters located the vehicle on a lower level of the garage, and extinguished the fire. However, a significant amount of smoke remained in the garage.
MCFRS personnel remained on-scene to assist in ventilating smoke from the garage. Very little smoke entered the residential floors of the building, so there was no need to evacuate the tower, MCFRS spokesperson Pete Piringer said. No injuries were reported. As a high-rise incident, the response from MCFRS and other departments was substantial, including at least one unit from the nearby National Institutes of Health.