Jan. 31--One woman was killed and another woman injured in a fire that broke out in a West Baltimore row house early Thursday morning, according to the Baltimore Fire Department.
Neighbors in the 1000 block of N. Rosedale Street in the city's Franklintown Road neighborhood said they were first alerted to the blaze when they heard screaming and breaking glass sometime after 4 a.m.
Lonnie Harvey, 51, a resident of the neighborhood for 24 years, said he ran outside to the sounds. "I was half asleep when I saw the fire shooting out the window," he said. One woman had already run out of the front of the home. Screams could be heard from the rear.
Harvey grabbed a large ladder, and joined other men from the street as they ran to the rear -- halfway down a narrow alley -- to try to reach a second story window, he said.
"It was a whole bunch of guys. It was everybody on the block trying to help," Harvey said. "It's just a natural thing somebody would do to try to help someone in trouble -- just an impulse. Sometimes you don't even think about your own safety."
Some of the men tried to climb the ladder to reach the window, Harvey said, but the smoke was overwhelming. "We couldn't even breathe."
By the time firefighters responded just before 5 a.m., they found the two-story home engulfed in flames, said Chief Kevin Cartwright, a department spokesman.
Outside the first floor of the home, a woman suffering from burns and smoke inhalation was located, Cartwright said. The woman was treated at the scene before being transported to the adult burn unit at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, he said.
He did not know her condition as of about 7:15 a.m.
Firefighters then began a search and rescue operation in the home.
Kenneth Grier, 18, one of the neighborhood men who had tried to help, said he saw a fireman trying to pull a woman from the rear second-story window without success.
"I saw the fireman try to pull her out but he couldn't," Grier said. "The fire came into the room and the whole backyard was black with smoke.
"The woman, who also suffered from burns and smoke inhalation, was pronounced dead at the scene, Cartwright said.
Cartwright said preliminary information indicated the two women were mother and daughter, but he did not know which of the two was killed.
The fire had been brought under control as of 6:30 a.m., and was contained to the single home, Cartwright said. Windows at the front and rear of the home were busted out, and the interior of the first floor appeared fully blackened and burned out.
Firefighters worked inside, throwing trashcans full of charred debris into the front yard as small groups of neighborhood children passed by on their way to school.
Investigators were trying to determine a cause, Cartwright said. No other injuries were reported.
Earlier Thursday, firefighters responded to a fire at a house in the 6200 block of Harford Road in the Westfield neighborhood of Northeast Baltimore. No one was injured.
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