Baltimore firefighters spent several hours Friday battling a wind-drive fire in a warehouse and were able to save nearby homes from the intense fire. The blaze reached four alarms.
Firefighters were called to the warehouse in the 400 block of West 23rd Street after 1 p.m. and began attacking the fire from the interior, officials said. The reached two alarms before 2 p.m.
As the fire worsened, crews were pulled from the building and mounted a defensive attack, and firefighters evacuated residents from homes in close proximity to the one-story building.
Baltimore Fire Chief James Wallace said his firefighters evacuated two-dozen residents from their homes as smoke enveloped the area.
Wallace said investigators believe the fire started outside the building and high winds fanned the flames into the structure.
"I want to stress one thing here. The firefighters from BCFD 100 percent saved the houses back here on 23rd Street. One hundred percent," Wallace said in a press conference. "Firefighters put themselves between the warehouse and the homes. These men and women absolutely risked their lives, got between this warehouse and those houses in an area I estimate to be about 50 feet. They were working around energized BGE lines, they were working through a very, very high volume of fire – zero visibility up 23rd Street."
He said they called additional units above the fourth alarm to augment the water supply as crews protected the exposures and used aerial ladders to darken down the flames.
Peter Matthews is the conference director and editor-in-chief of Firehouse. He has worked at Firehouse since 1999, serving in various roles on both Firehouse Magazine and Firehouse.com staffs. He completed an internship with the Rochester, NY, Fire Department and served with fire departments in Rush, NY, and Laurel, MD, and was a lieutenant with the Glenwood Fire Company in Glenwood Landing, NY. Matthews served as photographer for the St. Paul, MN, Fire Department and currently is a photographer for the Fort Worth, TX, Fire Department.
