Baltimore City Fire

Previous articles about problems in the Baltimore City Fire Department at baltimoresun.com/recruit

The "I love you" and "Rest in peace" notes scribbled on the wooden boards barricading the hollow windows of 1903 Cecil Ave. have begun to fade. But everything about the May blaze in an East Baltimore rowhouse that killed eight of her neighbors - five of them children - remains vivid for Anita Paige. After 14 years on this block, Paige says she is living more carefully: making sure not to leave the kitchen while a pot of soup's bubbling on the stove, clearing clothes away from her water heater and checking to see that her smoke detector works.

Mistakes and safety violations contributed to the death of a Baltimore firefighter as he battled a blaze on Macon Street in October, a draft investigative report says, revealing more problems for a department still struggling after a recruit died in February. The report, not yet made public but obtained by The Sun, says that firefighters in back of the house trained their hoses on the flames as Allan M. Roberts and others went in through the front. The fire turned water from the hoses into steam, increasing the heat inside the building.

The home of Baltimore's Engineering Society played host to a hot night at the fourth annual Fire Ball last Saturday. The honorary chairman, Baltimore City Fire Chief Herman Williams Jr. made sure the only things fired up at the Garrett-Jacobs mansion were the party's 250 guests.Others in attendance included Fire Ball co-chairpersons Sandy Whitney Jr. and Howard Yocum; Lite 102 radio announcer Mary Anne Perry and her fiance, Greg Zenger; Garrett-Jacobs Mansion Endowment Fund president Donald Vannoy; Engineering Society president Michael P. Goodrich; Baltimore Fire PIO Hector Torres; Fox45 meteorologist Lori Pinson; ESB board members Wendell Leimbach, Richard Magnani and Kate Carus; and event committee members Mike Szimanski, Si Braverman and Marian Bollinger.

Calvin Edwards -- that's Lt. Calvin Edwards of the Baltimore City Fire Department -- remembers his grandfather going to his job as a crane operator in a suit, hat and top coat.Nobody had to know he slipped into overalls on the job, because at day's end, he'd shower and put the suit on again.That meticulous attention to first impressions has gone a long way in shaping Edwards' approach to dress and life since he was a youngster. Now 40, Edwards also physically resembles his grandfather, who died about 15 years ago."

A stubborn four-alarm fire in a vacant Highlandtown warehouse kept firefighters busy for hours yesterday as billowing black smoke from Southeast Baltimore fanned out across the city.There were no injuries, although one of the 100 or so firefighters who fought the blaze was treated for muscle spasms.The fire began shortly before 10 a.m. in the 100 block of S. Oldham St. Michael Maybin, a spokesman for the Baltimore City Fire Department, said about 50 pieces of equipment were used to fight the fire for nearly 3 1/2 hours before it was controlled.

At least 25 people were left homeless yesterday after a four-alarm fire tore through eight rowhouses in Northwest Baltimore, according to the Baltimore City Fire Department.Firefighters were called to the blaze in the 3100 block of Oakford Ave. at 3: 51 p.m. and found 3118 Oakford Ave. -- a vacant rowhouse -- engulfed in flames, said Battalion Chief Hector Torres, a department spokesman. The fire quickly spread to the other houses while firefighters looked for a child who was reported trapped in the basement of 3114 Oakford Ave."

A police car has crashed into a light pole. The officer inside is trapped behind the steering wheel. He says he can't feel his legs, but the rest of his body is in excruciating pain.Enter -- with sirens screaming -- Bob Wagner and Rescue 1, the Baltimore City Fire Department's elite rescue unit."I know it hurts, buddy. Just stay still and we're going to get you out of there in a minute," Wagner says reassuringly. His team goes to work with a hydraulic metal cutter that bites through the car's frame so that workers can peel back the roof like the top on a can of Spam.

Members of the Douglass High School JROTC received the Maryland Technology Award yesterday at the Baltimore Convention Center for a computer program they created, the second time in three years the school has won the award.Principal Rose Backus-Davis said the students created a Jeopardy citizenship game that can be used on a computer.The award was presented by state Superintendent of Schools Nancy S. Grasmick at the Maryland Technology Showcase.Bicyclist wearing mask shoots at group, kills manA 20-year-old man was killed yesterday by a masked bicyclist, who opened fire on a group of people in the 2700 block of The Alameda in Northeast Baltimore and then escaped through an alley, police said.

LONDON -- Two fires. Two shootings. One rescue.And that's just in the opening hourlong episode of "Streets of Fire," a gritty documentary now airing in prime time that has British television viewers enthralled. Its subject: the men and women of the Baltimore City Fire Department.The three-part series on Britain's Channel 4 was shot earlier this year by British filmmaker Paul Berriff, who has transformed Baltimore's firefighters into TV stars who display humanity and heroism. On Jan. 4-5, the Discovery Channel in the United States is due to air a slightly altered version of the documentary under the title "Firehouse."

Just add water. That's all that was left for the residents of the East Baltimore neighborhood of Oliver to do after a vegetable garden and urban sanctuary were installed in a single day in a vacant lot in the 1300 block of N. Central Ave. Eight raised beds were filled with clean soil and planted with 150 vegetable seedlings Thursday. Around the perimeter, 400 perennials, herbs and shrubs were planted, plus 30 trees to shield the oasis from traffic noise. All planted in time for Mayor Sheila Dixon to cut the ribbon at the end of the day. "The vegetables that come out of this garden," said the mayor, "will help others make the change to greener and healthier living."

As if on cue during an event to mark the Baltimore City Fire Department's 150th year, sirens shrieked and ladder trucks raced up North Gay Street just minutes after the fire chief stepped up to the podium. "That noise is a working fire going on," James S. Clack, chief of the city's Fire Department, told the crowd of onlookers, firefighters and officials who gathered Saturday at War Memorial Plaza downtown. "If it gets any bigger, we might all have to leave." Speeches praising the department's dedication and perseverance would be interrupted twice more as a fire under way on Belair Road went to two alarms, then three.

The Baltimore City Fire Department is considering reducing its budget next year by ending the practice of filling vacant shifts by paying overtime, meaning that some truck or engine companies could be shut down on days with staff shortages, Fire Chief James S. Clack said yesterday. The proposed policy, known as "rotating company closures," could save the department $5.5 million in overtime expenditures, Clack said. Mayor Sheila Dixon directed all city agencies last month to reduce their budgets to save $65 million next year.

A rare example of Baltimore's architectural history was nearly lost several years ago when an 1871 firehouse on West Mulberry Street was torn down to make way for redevelopment. It was the only firehouse in Baltimore -- and one of the last surviving buildings in the city -- whose first-floor front facade was made of cast iron, a popular local building material in the 1800s, but not in use today. A quick thinking preservationist saw the demolition work under way and managed to salvage the largest cast-iron pieces before they were carted off for scrap metal.

John T. O'Mailey, a retired firefighter who spent decades as secretary of the Baltimore City Fire Department's board and was an early advocate of hiring African-American firefighters, died of cancer Tuesday at the Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. The longtime Belair-Edison and Towson resident was 91. Born in Baltimore and raised on Llewelyn Avenue, among other East Baltimore addresses, he attended City College for a year before dropping out to take a job. He attended night school and later earned a General Education Development certificate.

Thomas Joseph Baginski, a retired Baltimore City Fire Department battalion chief whose career spanned 41 years, died of cancer March 30 at Good Samaritan Hospital. The Parkville resident was 72. Mr. Baginski, who was born and raised in Baltimore, was a 1953 graduate of Calvert Hall College High School, where he played varsity football. He served in the Army for several years before joining the Fire Department in 1958. He was promoted to pump operator and lieutenant in 1964, and captain six years later.

Joseph Anthony Mirabile, a retired Baltimore City Fire Department captain who fought the Tru-Fit Clothing store blaze in 1955, died of renal failure complications Monday at his Dundalk home. He was 86. Born in Baltimore and raised in Little Italy, he attended St. Leo's parochial and city public schools and later earned a General Education Diploma. He studied marine drawing at the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts and won the school's Peabody Prize in 1956. He joined the Navy in 1939 and served in the Pacific during World War II. Stationed at Pearl Harbor in December 1941, he was aboard a ship that left the naval base three days before the Japanese attack.

The "I love you" and "Rest in peace" notes scribbled on the wooden boards barricading the hollow windows of 1903 Cecil Ave. have begun to fade. But everything about the May blaze in an East Baltimore rowhouse that killed eight of her neighbors - five of them children - remains vivid for Anita Paige. After 14 years on this block, Paige says she is living more carefully: making sure not to leave the kitchen while a pot of soup's bubbling on the stove, clearing clothes away from her water heater and checking to see that her smoke detector works.

Federal investigators are trying to determine why 12 railcars of a CSX freight train jumped the track yesterday morning near M&T Bank Stadium, just blocks from the site of the 2001 derailment and subsequent Howard Street Tunnel fire that burned for a week and paralyzed freight traffic along the East Coast. Nobody was hurt in yesterday's incident, which tied up traffic in the Camden Yards area for hours, but there were eerie similarities to the previous derailment, which sent plumes of acrid smoke into the air and forced evacuations.

Francis E. "Frank" Uhlhorn III, a retired Baltimore firefighter whose career spanned nearly four decades, died of cancer Oct. 10 at his Catonsville home. He was 65. Born in Baltimore and raised on Carrollton Avenue, Mr. Uhlhorn was a 1960 graduate of Edmondson High School. He followed his father and an uncle when he joined the Baltimore City Fire Department in 1970. He spent most of his career as a firefighter and lieutenant and was longtime captain of No. 8 Truck on Frederick Avenue.