Ignited

A one-alarm fire, caused by a bag of mulch that ignited, severely damaged an Ellicott City house yesterday afternoon, causing an estimated $350,000 in damage, a fire official said.Howard County Fire Capt. David Carroll said the fire broke out just after 5 p.m. at a residence in the 10170 block of Bracken Drive.Firefighters from Howard and Baltimore counties extinguished the fire in about two hours, Carroll said.At the back of the house, a bag of mulch, which was left next to the outside vent of a pellet stove, was ignited by the stove's heat, Carroll said.

George C. Wolfe, playwright, director and producer of the prestigious New York Shakespeare Festival, gravitates toward the things that scare him. "It's fun to sometimes dive off a cliff and see where you're going to land," Wolfe, 44, explained from his New York office last week.If you're Wolfe, you usually land on your feet -- and get showered with laurels."As acclaimed as a theater director can get," the Chicago Sun-Times has said. "Without question the most innovative producer and director staging work on or off Broadway," according to Essence magazine.

The two-alarm fire that killed an Elkridge artist and destroyed her split-level home Jan. 12 was caused by furnace exhaust heat that escaped through a faulty joint and then ignited floorboards.W. Faron Taylor, deputy chief fire marshal, said that Florence Riefle Bahr, 88, died of carbon monoxide poisoning, consistent with what apparently was a slow, smoldering fire that eventually became a raging blaze. It took firefighters 50 minutes to control the fire.Taylor said a joint in the furnace's pipe, in the ceiling of the basement, broke some time ago, allowing heat to penetrate the floorboards of the house in the 6000 block of Old Lawyer's Hill Road.

A century ago, three words (none of them "Lewinsky") summed up the tense political situation of the day: Remember the Maine.The U.S. battleship Maine, moored off Cuba, had exploded into the night sky Feb. 15, 1898, tossing dead and wounded sailors into Havana Harbor. Its sinking tipped the United States and Spain, already locked in an intense dispute over Cuba's struggle for independence, toward war.XTC Ever since, the question has bobbed at the surface of military history: What really sank the USS Maine?

Eight volunteer firefighters fighting a brush fire near Salisbury suffered respiratory problems yesterday when pesticides in a storage shed ignited, shooting out plumes of green and orange smoke.The firefighters from Sharptown and Mardela Springs were treated at Peninsula Regional Medical Center in Salisbury and released, fire officials said.Sharptown Volunteer Fire Chief William White said that Jerry Matyiko was burning a dilapidated shed on land he owns along Elzey Brown Loop near Sharptown about 11 a.m. when the fire got out of control and spread to surrounding brush and trees.

A century ago, three words (none of them "Lewinsky") summed up the tense political situation of the day: Remember the Maine.The U.S. battleship Maine, moored off Cuba, had exploded into the night sky Feb. 15, 1898, tossing dead and wounded sailors into Havana Harbor. Its sinking tipped the United States and Spain, already locked in an intense dispute over Cuba's struggle for independence, toward war.Ever since, the question has bobbed at the surface of military history: What really sank the USS Maine?

A fast-moving fire destroyed a $40,000 wood-frame house at 338 Forest Beach Road late Friday. No one was injured.A furnace in a crawl space under the floor ignited the flooring and, because no one arrived home until about 11: 50 p.m., the fire spread undetected until it engulfed the single-story house, said Battalion Chief Gary Sheckells, the Anne Arundel County EMS Fire-Rescue spokesman.Pub Date: 4/13/97

A smoldering cigarette ignited a bed in a second-floor bedroom of a townhouse in the 6500 block of Carrolltowne Village Road in Sykesville at 11 a.m. Monday. Fire officials said the fire caused about $500 in damage.One firefighter suffered second-degree burns to his left wrist and hand and was treated at the scene, fire officials said.FireGamber: Firefighters assisted Baltimore County at 3: 10 p.m., responding for a house fire on Nicodemus Road. Units were out 10 minutes.Pub Date: 4/25/96

A fire broke out on top of a Charles Village apartment house yesterday, sending dozens of Johns Hopkins University students onto the street and creating a thick plume of black smoke seen for miles around the city.The two-alarm blaze began about 10 a.m. as workers were re-roofing the 11-story building, an off-campus apartment house for Hopkins students in the 3200 block of N. Charles St., authorities said.No one was injured, and there was little damage to the building, Fire Department Battalion Chief Hector L. Torres said.

A family of five fled into freezing temperatures when smoldering ashes left in a garage ignited a fire at their Scaggsville home early yesterday, fire officials said.No one was injured in the 12:20 a.m. fire in the 10300 block of Derby Drive, but two cars and other property inside the garage and home were destroyed.The fire caused $200,000 in damage, fire officials said.Cold weather and ice hampered firefighters' efforts to fight the blaze, said Lt. Ken Byerly, a Howard County fire spokesman.

Frederick Co. woman killed in head-on crash 1 A 51-year-old Frederick County woman was killed in a head-on collision Saturday afternoon on Route 26 at Old Liberty Road, state police said. Police said Patricia Marie Ryan was killed when the car she was driving east on Route 26 crossed the center line and collided with a pickup truck, causing the truck to overturn. Ryan was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the truck, Alfonso Contreras Balderas, 32, of Frederick County and two passengers were taken to Washington County Hospital, where they were treated for injuries that were not considered life-threatening, police said.

Two state agencies have launched investigations of a Northwest Baltimore salon where a woman was badly burned Saturday after a bowl of heated acetone ignited while she was having her artificial nails removed. The action by Maryland Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the state Board of Cosmetologists comes two days after Niquita Andrews, 35, was burned at the Nail Studio in the 5400 block of Reisterstown Road. The Owings Mills woman had been soaking her hands in a small machine that heated acetone when the flammable chemical ignited, said Kevin Cartwright, a Baltimore fire spokesman.

CLEMSON, S.C. - Rarely in basketball does one play perfectly illustrate just how far apart two teams are in talent and execution. But two minutes into the second half of Clemson's 93-64 thumping of Maryland last night at Littlejohn Coliseum, Tigers forward Trevor Booker did exactly that. Clemson was beginning to pull away from the Terps after a competitive first half and was on its way to handing Maryland its worst defeat in the series, but no one could have predicted what was about to unfold.

Maryland undoubtedly needs more and cheaper energy, but we're not going to do just anything to get it. We won't strip state forests for fireplace fodder. We won't reverse pollution controls on cars and power plants. And we shouldn't let ships carrying liquefied natural gas sail into the mouth of the Patapsco River. Importing small but potentially catastrophic industrial risks into highly populated areas may have been OK for the 20th-century economy. It doesn't work now. With hundreds of miles of coastline to accommodate freighters bringing gas from the Caribbean, why choose one of the few spots where an accident or terrorist attack could do grave damage?

The Maryland Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined Domino Sugar $4,000 for allowing sugar dust to accumulate in its refinery, which is believed to have caused an explosion last year at the Key Highway plant in South Baltimore, according to a state report. The Nov. 2 explosion echoed across the harbor, and authorities said they suspected sugar dust might have ignited. Three employees suffered minor injuries, several pieces of equipment were destroyed and dozens of windows were shattered in the blast.

DEWANA, India -- With a name meaning understanding and agreement, the Samjhauta Express linking India and Pakistan was a symbol of hope that the two nations might finally trade decades of enmity for friendship. Now, that ideal of cooperation appears to have been as much a target as the scores of passengers who burned to death yesterday in a fire that swept through two of the train's carriages as it headed toward the Pakistani border. The blaze was apparently sparked by a pair of crude bombs, prompting speculation that it was the work of attackers bent on crippling the two nations' halting steps toward peace, including a high-level meeting set for today between the arch-rivals.

Two small fires were set yesterday at Baltimore's Southwestern High School complex, according to Antonio Williams, chief of the city schools police. The first fire was reported about 8:30 a.m. in a storage room on the first floor of the school in the 200 block of Font Hill Ave. "Someone stuffed something under the door and ignited it," Williams said. The second fire occurred a few minutes later in the boys locker room in the building's basement. Williams said that someone ignited a T-shirt and stuffed it under the door.

Burned man is identified The homeless man who was found dead early Sunday lying between two burning vehicles at an Essex used-car dealership has been identified as August Edward Hisker, 60, Baltimore County police said. Firefighters found Hisker's burned body when they responded about 6:20 a.m. to the Auto Bank lot in the 1000 block of Eastern Blvd., police said. Police said it appeared Hisker had been trying to keep warm in a van on the lot when a cigarette ignited the fire, which spread to two adjacent vehicles.

LANDOVER HILLS - Hoping to generate new leads, a regional task force hunting for a serial arsonist believed responsible for nearly three dozen fires in the Washington area released a new sketch of a man yesterday and increased to $35,000 the reward for information leading to an arrest. "We want the community to take a second look," said Prince George's County Fire Chief Ronald D. Blackwell, spokesman for the 13-agency task force that includes federal, state and local authorities. "We are going to leave no stone unturned."

The ninth arson in Prince George's County was set just after 4 a.m. at a two-story house in Capitol Heights. Someone ignited a blaze on Emily Brown's front porch as she, her son, sister and brother-in-law slept soundly inside. Brown never heard the smoke detectors. Her sister shook her awake as the fierce flames ate through the front door and kitchen ceiling. Clad in a nightgown, a barefoot Brown escaped to safety with her relatives - but she remains trapped by her fears. "I wake up every morning between 4 and 4:30 a.m. It's embedded in my mind," said Brown, 56. "The only time I feel safe is when it's raining."