OCEAN CITY, Md. -- Residents in this resort town are grieving following a three-alarm fire Tuesday left a popular Episcopal minister and another man dead and a woman seriously injured.
About 9:25 a.m. Tuesday, a man on fire ran into the rectory sparking the fire at St. Paul’s By The Sea Episcopal Church in downtown Ocean City, city officials said.
The Rev. David Dingwall was rushed to the hospital, but he died Tuesday afternoon.
The man who ran into the rectory also died, while a woman was taken to Johns Hopkins Bayview in Baltimore for treatment of life-threatening injuries.
“He was a very bright man and very, very funny,” the Rev. Canon Heather Cook of the diocese told reporters Tuesday evening. “He had a big heart for outreach to the community and we are very much going to feel the loss of him.”
Tuesdays are especially busy at the parish house because that's one of three days when folks showed up to get food and clothes, people told the media.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
A vigil for those involved will be held Wednesday night.
