Rowhouse

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 woman injured both legs last night when she jumped from the second-floor window of a burning rowhouse in the 1800 block of N. Longwood St. in West Baltimore, said Battalion Chief Michael Moritz.The one-alarm fire was reported at 7: 41 p.m., Moritz said.Police said Barbara Aye, 35, was treated for leg injuries at Maryland Shock Trauma Center.She was a visitor at the house when the fire broke out.Unhurt were residents Patrice Muse, 39; Muse's daughter, Anesha Hubbard, 16; Charles Fisher, 69; and Charles Winstead, 33.Pub Date: 10/29/98

Seven people -- at least six of them children -- were hospitalized last night after a fire in a rowhouse in the 900 block of N. Mount St. in West Baltimore.Fire Department Battalion Chief William Goodwin said firefighters responding to the scene shortly before 11 p.m. rescued four of the children from the home. James Yeats, a Mount Street neighbor, pulled two other children from the home, he and other residents said.The children and an adult woman were taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, Goodwin said.

A small rowhouse blaze sent a Baltimore woman to the hospital yesterday with second- and third-degree burns on her upper body, city fire officials said. The fire, in the 600 block of S. Decker Ave. in Canton, was reported about 4:20 p.m., said Chief Kevin Cartwright, a Fire Department spokesman. Firefighters rescued one victim, a woman believed to be about 50 years old, from the first floor of the home, Cartwright said. She was taken to the Johns Hopkins Burn Center, where she was treated for second- and third-degree burns above her waist.

The body of an unidentified man whose hands were bound behind him was found yesterday afternoon in a shed in the rear of a vacant West Baltimore rowhouse. Police have ruled the death a homicide.Lt. Ben Lieu of the homicide squad said pedestrians in the rear of the 1700 block of N. Carey St. noticed the body in the backyard shed at about 1 p.m.Lieu said a preliminary autopsy showed the man died from blunt force trauma to the upper body and that he had been dead for several hours.Police believe the man was killed elsewhere and his body was dumped into the shed late Monday night or early yesterday morning.

A single-alarm fire late Wednesday killed four people, whose bodies were found in separate rooms inside an East Baltimore rowhouse. Their identities, genders and relationships were not immediately available, but at least one was elderly, said Chief Kevin Cartwright, a Fire Department spokesman. Cartwright said the incident is the city's first fatal fire this year and that its cause is under investigation. One person was found in a second-floor front room, another in the rear of the house, and the third and fourth in other sections of the house in the 1600 block of E. Oliver St. Reported at 11:10 p.m., the blaze filled much of the dwelling with smoke before firefighters were able to beat back flames.

A three-story Canton rowhouse under renovation by its owner was destroyed last night during a fire that was fueled by the rupture of a natural gas pipe, authorites said. No one was injured in the blaze, which was reported at 10:17 p.m. in the 3200 block of Foster Ave. It quickly burned out all three floors, causing much of the structure to collapse onto Foster Avenue and onto a rear alley. A second alarm was sounded at 10:27 p.m. Feeding the fire was the natural gas that continued to burn despite huge quantities of water being poured onto the house.

Two city firefighters were injured yesterday when the second floor of a burning West Baltimore rowhouse collapsed beneath them.The fire in the unoccupied house, investigators said, was started by thieves apparently trying to get warm while removing copper piping from the house about 7:30 a.m.Battalion Chief Ronald Brown said Lt. Thomas Giesler and firefighter Herbert Rieger fell about 12 feet to the first floor at 60 South Franklintown Road.Both men suffered sprains and strains to the back, arms and neck.

An 11-month-old Baltimore girl died in a fire started by a candle her mother was using to light her home after her electricity was turned off because she had not paid her bill.Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. officials said yesterday they made repeated attempts to help Shalonda Anderson, 22, pay her bill before her power was cut off.On Thursday night, the woman's 11-month-old daughter was killed, the child's brother and sister overcome by smoke and three firefightersinjured in a fire that was started by a candle in the rowhouse in the 500 block of E. 23rd St., just north of Greenmount Cemetery.

THE PROBLEM -- The cornice near the roof of an abandoned rowhouse was loose and threatening to fall off. THE BACKSTORY -- Nora Giles says she couldn't walk on her own street. For three decades, she has lived on Rankin Place in the Poppleton community of West Baltimore. A rowhouse on the end of the three-house group, 1228 Rankin, has sat empty for about 15 years, said Giles and her brother, James Smith. The previous owner took care of it, Giles said. But after he died, people began dumping trash in the backyard and drug dealers used it to hide their stash.