CARMEL

As smoke billows from the house, Dan Taylor (center, back to camera) maps out the basement location of the dryer for the firefighters. A Carmel family has learned a painful lesson: Remove the lint and fabric residue from filters and exterior exhaust pipes on all clothes dryers.

A blaze broke out Sunday afternoon at the Daniel Taylor residence on Four Sunny Crest when fluff and cloth remains ignited inside the family’s clothes dryer, sending a heavy concentration of smoke throughout the basement and main floor of the wood frame home.

Fire officials credited Taylor’s teenaged son with noticing a strong odor of smoke and, after turning off the appliance, calling 911.

Chief Mark Earle said the young man’s action averted a major inferno.

Despite the teen’s heroics, when fire crews arrived they were greeted with dense, choking smoke coming from a rear door. Firefighters had great difficulty in finding the burning dryer because it was located in the basement with a single stair access.

After making several attempts, Taylor, himself a former fire chief in Somers, mapped the location for the fire crews, who, wearing special breathing gear, extinguished the blaze, but not before the home sustained considerable smoke damage.

Chief Earle called dryer fires a “fire department’s second most common, behind chimney blazes. We tell people to have their chimneys swept and cleaned each year. Clothes dryer vents must also be cleaned regularly.”

Two firefighters who ingested smoke were checked out at the scene by EMTs from the Carmel Ambulance Corps.

Assisting at the scene were Carmel Assistant Chief Patrick O’Brien, Putnam Deputy Emergency Coordinator Mike Hengel, members of the Brewster, Lake Carmel, Mahopac, and Kent Fire Departments, Carmel Police Chief Michael Johnson, and members of the Carmel Police Department, the Carmel Fire Police Team, Putnam County Fire Investigation Team, and a representative of the Putnam Bureau of Emergency Services.

Fire crews remained at the scene for two hours.

—Eric Gross