Fire Started

A dozen families were burned out of their Meade Village apartments Wednesday when a three-alarm fire swept through their building, county fire officials said yesterday.Lt. Robert Kornmann, a fire department spokesman, said one firefighter suffered from heat exhaustion in the blaze, which was was started by a child playing with matches.William Peters, the firefighter, was taken by ambulance to Howard County General Hospital, treated and released, a hospital spokesman said.According to Clifton Martin, a county housing authority spokesman, 12 families living at 1677 Meade Village Circle were displaced by the fire.

More than 150 Baltimore County firefighters tackled a fire in a Rosedale strip mall Saturday afternoon, which appeared to have started in Jackie Chen's Chinese Restaurant, officials said. At least six stores were involved in the three-alarm fire in the 8400 block of Philadelphia Blvd., officials said. Firefighters, who were dispatched around 12:40 p.m., got it under control around 3:05 p.m. No injuries have been reported, and the cause of the fire is still under investigation.

A two-alarm fire early yesterday destroyed a four-unit apartment building in Westminster, but its eight residents, including two children, escaped without injuries, fire officials said. The fire started at 5:25 a.m. in the 200 block of Schaeffer Ave., and badly damaged all of the apartments in the one-story wood-frame structure, officials said. The cause of the fire was being investigated.

City police and fire investigators say Molotov cocktails started two fires in Northeast Baltimore early Wednesday, one of which injured seven people at an apartment complex and displaced many more. Police are still seeking a motive, but said they do not believe the victims were targeted or the incidents were hate crimes. But because of the deadly potential of such attacks, patrols in the neighborhoods have been increased, police said, and the investigation has been made a priority.

Investigators probe fire that killed childState fire investigators were trying to determine the cause of a one-alarm house fire that killed 9-year-old Richard Alexander Ponchak Tuesday.Deputy Chief State Fire Marshal Bob Thomas said yesterday that the fire started in a second-floor bedroom at the home of David and Pamela Ponchak about 11:45 p.m. Tuesday. The couple tried unsuccessfully to put out the fire, Mr. Thomas said.About 40 Cecil County firefighters controlled the blaze within minutesand then found Richard on the bedroom floor, Mr. Thomas said.

A January fire that destroyed a Northwest Baltimore house and killed five people was not the work of an arsonist, top police officials said yesterday after a meeting with the fire chief."

Fire swept through a two-story rowhouse in Brooklyn yesterday, killing a man who was trapped inside. The victim was believed to be a 31-year-old man, but city fire officials had not confirmed his identity late last night. The fire started on the ground floor at 1348 Patapsco Ave. about 2 p.m. and took about a half-hour for 50 city firefighters to bring under control. Two firefighters suffered minor steam burns and a third injured his foot, said city Fire Department spokesman Donald Heinbuch.

A one-alarm fire Wednesday night caused property damage estimated at $40,000 to the Mount Washington Food Market in the 1600 block of Kelly Ave.Capt. Calvin Johnson, city Fire Department spokesman, said the fire started in an electrical outlet behind an ice cream cooler on the first floor of the two-story brick building.The fire was confined to the first floor.No one was injured in the fire, which was reported at 10:22 p.m.

The West Baltimore rowhouse fire that claimed the lives of two men last month was caused by a candle, said Chief Theodore Saunders, the city fire marshal. Robert Hunt and Ernest Hickman died in the blaze. Two women were injured. Both were treated at hospitals. The fire started about 4 a.m. while 10 people were sleeping in the house in the 1900 block of E. Hoffman St. The home had not been served by BGE for a decade.

A two-alarm fire caused major damage, but did not injure anyone, at a home in the 10000 block of Galahad Court near Centennial Lane in Ellicott City on Friday. Howard County fire Capt. Sean Kelly said the fire, which broke out shortly after 1 p.m., destroyed the two-story house's second floor and the rear of the first floor. Some family members were home when the fire started. "There was a substantial loss," Kelly said of the home of Raymond Finamore and his family. Kelly said the home was recently appraised as being worth $305,000.

A Baltimore woman was treated for a mild case of smoke inhalation following a house fire in the 1200 block of W. Lexington St. in Baltimore City Thursday morning. According to Baltimore City Fire Department spokesman Kevin Cartwright, units were called at 8:13 a.m. to a three-story end-of-group house on Lexington Street. He said they found fire in the first floor hallway and going up to the second floor Cartwright said the occupants escaped by climbing onto the roof and down a ladder and that the fire was put out in six minutes.

A three-alarm fire that spread across rooftops damaged a string of rowhouses in Canton on Sunday morning, displacing more than a dozen people and several frightened cats but causing no injuries, according to fire officials. The blaze, first reported about 6:40 a.m. in the 900 block of South Bouldin St., sent residents and their guests racing to the smoke-filled street. One woman got her visiting daughter and four young grandchildren safely outside. The owners of two houses volunteer at animal rescue centers and had at least six cats, including two kittens rescued last week from a feral colony.

An East Baltimore church was destroyed in an early morning blaze Sunday after a burglar stole sound equipment from the building, according to police. No injuries were reported in the fire and burglary, which occurred shortly after 4 a.m. at the Paradise Christian Center, located in the 3000 block of E. Oliver Street, according to police spokesman Kevin Brown. Brown said the fire started when a burglar attempted to steal the sound equipment, and eventually consumed the entire building.

The Washington Redskins moved quickly in their pursuit of Mike Shanahan on Monday, flying in the former Denver Broncos coach on the same day the team fired Jim Zorn . Shanahan and his wife, Peggy , landed at Dulles International Airport near Redskins Park in Ashburn, Va., in midafternoon and were driven away in a limousine to meet with owner Dan Snyder and general manager Bruce Allen . Snyder planned for Shanahan to...

A two-alarm fire damaged two apartments in a Baltimore County building complex yesterday morning and sent one occupant to a hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation, according to a fire official. The blaze was first reported about 5:45 a.m. in a third-story apartment at the Kenilworth at Charles Apartments in the 1100 block of Donington Circle, between Joppa Road and the Baltimore Beltway, west of Towson. The fire started on a kitchen stove in an unattended pan of cooking oil, fire officials said.

Robert Gray and his fiancee returned yesterday to survey the damage from the fire that tore through their apartment complex near Woodlawn, a four-alarm blaze that left them without a place to live and that officials said was started by accident. Looking up at his apartment, Gray recounted all the things he lost: a fluffy cat named Jasmine; a collection of five guitars; sails for his 19-foot boat, which had been in the parking lot of the Queens Ridge Apartments on Giard Drive. "It's just so unbelievable," said Gray, 48, a welder-fabricator.

COLLEGE PARK -- A fire Tuesday night forced the evacuation of a University of Maryland dormitory just as students were in the middle of studying for final exams, but no one was injured. The fire started about 6:20 p.m. in a heating and air conditioning unit at La Plata Hall, campus police said. Six dormitory rooms suffered water damage but were deemed habitable when the building reopened at 11:20 p.m. The fire's cause is under investigation, but foul play has been ruled out, police said.

Fire heavily damaged one section of a wood-frame duplex house in the 1400 block of N. Main St., Hampstead, in a two-alarm blaze that broke out about 10:45 p.m. Thursday.The fire started in the vacant part of the building, and the occupants of the other side escaped without injury, according to Hampstead Fire Chief Herb Raver.Mr. Raver said the fire started in the unoccupied house around the chimney. Its cause is under investigation.About 70 firefighters from Hampstead, Manchester, Westminster, and Arcadia and Boring of Baltimore County worked for about an hour to bring the fire under control.

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- The furniture store blaze that killed nine firefighters last week started in an enclosed loading dock, federal investigators said yesterday. A Sofa Super Store employee told the Associated Press that the area was used for smoke breaks. The Charlotte Observer reported Friday that the structure that enclosed the loading dock at the showroom and warehouse complex on Savannah Highway was built without a building permit sometime in the past nine years. The announcement yesterday by Special Agent Ken Chisholm of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives ends the on-scene investigation for the agency, which is also trying to find the cause of the fire and piece together events that led to the deaths Monday evening.

Four townhouses in Eldersburg were heavily damaged yesterday afternoon in a three-alarm fire, authorities said. Seven residents - five adults and two young children - were displaced, but no one was injured, said Bill Rehkopf, public information officer for the Sykesville-Freedom District Fire Department. Firefighters rescued a cocker spaniel and a cat from one home, he said. Heavy smoke was coming from the rear and roof of adjacent houses at 1102 and 1104 Pennywort Circle when firefighters arrived about 1:30 p.m., Rehkopf said.