STERLING, Va. — A former employee of a propane supplier has been charged in the death of a volunteer firefighter who died while responding to a house explosion in Virginia in February, officials said Tuesday.
Roger Bentley was indicted Monday on charges of involuntary manslaughter and unlawful release of hazardous materials, Loudoun County Fire and Rescue said in a statement.
Bentley also was charged with failure to maintain required records of an unauthorized discharge of hazardous materials, and unlawful failure to control or mitigate the unauthorized discharge of hazardous materials.
Online court records did not show if Bentley had a lawyer to speak on his behalf about the charges Tuesday.
The house explosion in Sterling led to the death of volunteer firefighter Trevor Brown, significant injuries to 11 first responders and $2.5 million in damages, Loudoun County officials said. Brown was married with three children and had been with the county firefighting services since 2016, officials said.
Firefighters arrived at the home in the Washington, D.C., suburb to investigate a report about a gas smell, officials said. They discovered a 500-gallon underground propane tank with a leak on the side of the residence, officials said.
Shortly after they arrived, the house exploded and burst into flames, with multiple mayday calls coming from the firefighters trapped inside. Crews rushed in to try to rescue them from the debris that covered them.
Two people inside the house were escorted out before the explosion and suffered minor injuries from the blast.
