Volunteer Firefighter

Stuart Halstead Dobson, a retired Whiting-Turner Contracting Co. executive and civil engineer, died Nov. 20 of a massive stroke at Hospice of Queen Anne's in Centreville. The Stevensville resident was 76. The son of a Bethlehem Steel Corp. mechanical engineer and a homemaker, he was born in Baltimore and raised in Hamilton. After graduating in 1954 from Polytechnic Institute, Mr. Dobson studied engineering for two years at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Fifty trips to New York to honor some of the 343 firefighters who died in the aftermath of 9/11 helped ignite an idea in the mind of Howard County Assistant Fire Chief J. Mark Richards, resulting in a mission he is carrying out today. Standing at attention several dozen different times while listening to bagpipers play as pallbearers carried the caskets of those New York firefighters, he knew what he wanted to do: Help form a pipe band back in Maryland. Richards made those trips a decade ago with other county firefighters during off-duty hours to Staten Island and Manhattan to attend funeral and memorial services held in the vicinity of the World Trade Center's twin towers.

A townhouse complex in Owings Mills erupted in flames Tuesday afternoon, and some 80 firefighters battled the blaze. The 3-alarm fire, reported shortly after 2 p.m., affected at least 13 townhouses in the complex at 15 Old Coach Lane, according to Jay Ringgold, a spokesman for the Baltimore County Fire Department, who was speaking from the scene. The fire was under control by about 3:50 p.m., officials said. Ringgold said the fire burned in a stretch of 3-story houses that occupy "one long building.

Melvin Raymond Kulis, a retired Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Co. supervisor and World War II veteran, died Friday at his Bel Air home of complications from Parkinson's disease. He was 84. The son of a Polish immigrant steelworker and a homemaker, he was born in Baltimore and raised near Patterson Park and Highlandtown. He was a Patterson Park High School graduate and enlisted in the Navy in the waning days of World War II. He attended submarine school at Newport, R.I., and served in Europee aboard the destroyer tender USS Tidewater as a laundryman and later apprentice electrician.

No one knows how many bull-and-oyster roasts they've held at the Earleigh Heights Volunteer Fire Company in Severna Park. After 92 years, it can be tough to keep track. Even Bill Weitzell scratches his head at the question, and he knows as much about this kind of thing as anybody. "To be honest, I'm not sure," says Weitzell, a Severna Park resident who joined the company when Franklin D. Roosevelt was president, gas cost 10 cents a gallon and a fireman was lucky if his rescue ladder reached the roof of a two-story house.

A two-alarm fire Saturday evening heavily damaged the Charles Village Pub & Patio, a popular hangout for Towson University students. Flames broke out about 7:25 p.m. at the two-story brick building at 19 W. Pennsylvania Ave. in downtown Towson, near Washington Avenue, shutting down several blocks of downtown Towson for several hours. One volunteer firefighter from the Providence volunteer company suffered minor injuries in a fall, said Lynn Mullahey, a spokesperson for Baltimore County Fire Department.

Within a sea of blue firefighters' uniforms, some people could not contain their sorrow, and others didn't even try. The flag-draped casket bearing the body of Mark G. Falkenhan, the veteran Baltimore County firefighter who died in a blaze last week, was carried Monday from the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, led by a lone bagpiper. Hundreds of white-gloved hands snapped a simultaneous salute. The grief-stricken widow, Gladys Falkenhan — who lost her father, another firefighter, only last month — held a scarf to her face as she gripped her eldest son's hand.

Baltimore County police are warning drivers to expect traffic delays in parts of Baltimore and Baltimore County Monday afternoon as mourners turn out for the funeral of a volunteer firefighter, who died trying to save residents of a burning apartment complex. Police say delays could start around 12:15 p.m. as people leave services at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen at 5200 N. Charles St. in North Baltimore and proceed to Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens in Timonium. Traffic could be affected until as late as 5 p.m., police said.

Baltimore County investigators today were trying to determine the cause of a four-alarm apartment fire in Hillendale that left a volunteer firefighter dead. Two residents of the Towson Crossing complex also were seriously injured in the fire that began Wednesday evening. As arson investigators and other fire officials worked at the scene this morning, the front of the Lutherville Volunteer Fire Company's station was draped in black cloth to honor member Mark Falkenhan. Falkenhan, a 43-year-old husband and father of two, became trapped inside a third-story apartment and later died at St. Joseph Medical Center, Baltimore County Fire Department spokeswoman Elise Armacost said.