Small Fire

A pot of food left cooking on a stove when no one was home was blamed for a small fire in Glen Burnie on Wednesday night, Anne Arundel County Fire Department officials said. A neighbor spotted flames in a kitchen in the 7900 block of Parke West Drive at 9:48 p.m. and called 911, Battalion Chief Steve Thompson said. Firefighters arrived to see smoke coming from the roof, he said. The blaze was under control at 10:14 p.m. No one was injured. The room and its contents were damaged, Thompson said.

A pot of food left cooking on a stove when no one was home was blamed for a small fire in Glen Burnie Wednesday night, Anne Arundel County Fire Department officials said. A neighbor spotted flames in a kitchen in the 7900 block of Parke West Drive around 9:48 p.m. and called 911, Battalion Chief Steve Thompson said. Firefighters arrived to see smoke coming from the roof, he said. The blaze was under control at 10:14 p.m. No one was injured. The room and its contents were damaged, Thompson said.

Baltimore Fire Department officials were investigating a small fire that damaged the interior of a portable classroom at Carver Vocational Technical High School yesterday afternoon. Members of the school's track team had left the building moments earlier after changing out of their uniforms, a spokesman said, and no injuries were reported. Reported at 5:45 p.m., the fire broke out in a one-story, vinyl-covered, 10-classroom portable building near the rear of the school in the 2200 block of Presstman St. It was brought under control in less than 30 minutes by firefighters with about 10 pieces of fire apparatus, said Chief Kevin Cartwright, the spokesman.

Overdose deaths dip in the city Deaths from drug and alcohol overdoses in Baltimore dropped slightly in the first three months of this year, compared with last year, according to data released yesterday by the Health Department. Baltimore Health Commissioner Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein said it was too early to know whether the results indicated a long-term trend. Overall, 43 city residents died from drug or alcohol poisoning. Last year, there were 45 deaths in the first quarter, but 59, 66 and 66 in the final three quarters of the year.

A man died in a small fire that broke out early yesterday in the kitchen of his rowhouse in Northeast Baltimore's Bel-Air Edison neighborhood, according to a city fire official. The first fire victim of 2008 was found lying behind a refrigerator and was pronounced dead at the scene, said Chief Kevin Cartwright, a spokesman for the Baltimore Fire Department. Another man who also lived in the house said he had left before the fire started. The survivor identified himself to a reporter as Marc Hurley, 45. Hurley said his dead companion was Clarence Wayne Windbush, also 45. Cartwright said the fire was reported shortly after 3 a.m. in the end-of-group two-story brick rowhouse in the 3600 block of Dudley Ave., at Cliftmont Avenue.

A 5-year-old boy, his mother and his grandmother were killed in a pre-dawn house fire yesterday near Gaithersburg, fire officials said. The boy's 13-year-old brother, awakened by the alarm of a smoke detector, escaped from the house through a back door and "banged on a neighbor's door" to alert them to the fire, said Peter Piringer, a spokesman for the Montgomery County Fire-Rescue Department. Oscar Sanchez was being treated for burns and smoke inhalation at Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in Rockville and was expected to survive, Piringer said.

State buys land at 1814 battle site The state has purchased 9 acres at the site of the 19th-century Battle of North Point for preservation as a historic landmark, officials announced yesterday. The parcel, on North Point Road near Trappe Road, is described as the only undeveloped remnant of land where American troops fought off British invaders in September 1814 during the War of 1812. Much of the battlefield is now covered by homes, businesses and roads, including the Beltway. The Trust for Public Land, a nonprofit land preservation and conservation group, negotiated the $1.75 million purchase of the land from Mars Super Markets.

A 20-year-old Parkton woman was convicted yesterday of two counts of auto manslaughter and other charges in the deaths of a woman and her grandson in a head-on collision in November. Jessica L. Crumpler was found guilty by Baltimore County Circuit Judge Patrick Cavanaugh in the deaths of Audrey Baseman, 72, and her grandson, Joseph Baseman, 14, both of White Hall. Crumpler was driving a 1998 GMC Jimmy sport utility vehicle south on York Road, near Beetree Road, when she attempted to pass a car in front of her. She crossed the double yellow line at the crest of a hill and crashed into Audrey Baseman's 1988 Chevrolet Nova, prosecutor Allan Webster said.

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.