Two Fires

Fire heavily damaged a three-story apartment building in Westminster yesterday, one day after the adjacent Goodwill store was destroyed by flames.Fire officials said the two incidents were unrelated.Westminster Fire Department Lt. Charles J. Simpson said the six apartments at 79 W. Main St. were empty because of smoke damage from Thursday's fire."It's a big old house built in 1860 that has had several structures added to it," Simpson said. "The front part is a three-story brick building with six apartment units."

A two-alarm fire in a Northeast Baltimore apartment complex yesterday left 31 people homeless and caused more than $170,000 in damage, said a Fire Department spokesman.The fire started about 12: 30 p.m. in a basement apartment at 4805 Lorelly Ave. at Lorelly Court Apartments and was caused by a child playing with matches, said Battalion Chief Hector L. Torres, the spokesman.At least eight people jumped from second- and third-floor windows at the 12-unit building to escape the fire, Torres said.

Two fires that caused extensive damage to apartments in Brooklyn Park and Glen Burnie and left five families displaced Thursday were caused by electrical short-circuits in the walls, fire officials said yesterday.Fire spread through the roof of an apartment building in the 7800 block of Americana Circle, Glen Burnie, shortly after 4 p.m. Thursday and caused $250,000 in damage.Firefighters had to tear a hole in the roof to douse the blaze. An unidentified woman was taken to North Arundel Hospital complaining of back pain, but no one was injured in the fire, officials said.

Two fires in east Columbia caused thousands of dollars in damage Monday, the Howard County Fire and Rescue officials said.About 12: 36 p.m., rescue crews responded to a call in the 6800 block of Many Days in Owen Brown village and extinguished a fire that had begun when a heat pump outside a single-family rancher burst into flames, said Lt. Kenneth Byerly, as fire and rescue spokesman.Flames crept up the side of the house, spreading to rooms on the second floor and the attic, a report said.

Baltimore firefighters were busy yesterday battling two fires -- one that prompted a dramatic rescue of three people trapped on the second floor of a rowhouse and another that started when three young children were left home alone.The latest blaze broke out about 2: 30 p.m. in a rowhouse in the 200 block of S. Mount St. in Southwest Baltimore.Fire Department spokesman Battalion Chief Hector L. Torres said the mother of the children, ages 3, 5 and 10, left them at home with their aunt. The aunt then left the house, leaving a pot of food cooking on the stove, which sparked the fire.

Two children were killed and two others were injured yesterday morning in a fire that burned out a West Baltimore rowhouse, trapping a half-dozen youngsters on the second and third floors as they slept.Thick smoke poured from windows and doors, initially hampering rescue efforts.Firefighters pulled some youngsters out of a third-story window and got to others by fighting through flames inside the house in the 500 block of N. Fulton Ave.Residents gathered across the street and watched the spectacle, counting children as they emerged from the debris, curled in the arms of firefighters and police officers.

CHARAR-I-SHARIEF, India -- From an almond grove above the ruins of this ancient town, the thick white smoke spiraling into the air seems like a totem of the miseries that have afflicted Kashmir in the five years since decades of political tensions in the region erupted into guerrilla war.In a conflict that has taken at least 20,000 lives, there has been nothing to galvanize feelings among Kashmir's Muslim majority, nor to shock the Indian government, like...

An Edgewood man was arrested Thursday in an arson that caused $100,000 worth of damage to his home last summer.Thomas Patrick Saraullo Sr. of the 200 block of Kennard Ave. was charged with one count of arson and one count of arson with intent to defraud his insurer in an indictment returned by the Harford County grand jury Dec. 13. If convicted, he could be sentenced to more than 30 years in prison.Maryland Deputy Chief Fire Marshal Bob Thomas said that two fires were started in the basement of the Saraullo home the morning of July 20. No one was hurt.

25 Years Ago (Week of July 6-12, 1969):* After months of discussion, the Howard County Board of Education stood by its original position that smoking by students on school property should be forbidden. Student leaders had contended that smoking by students would continue, whether forbidden or not.50 Years Ago (Week of July 9-15, 1944):* The Ellicott City Fire Department responded to two fires in a single afternoon. One fire was on the roof over the ticket booth of the Earle Theatre on Main Street.

FIRES* Hampstead: Hampstead assisted Baltimore County at a reported house fire on Yeoho Road at 2:14 p.m. Saturday. Units were out for 26 minutes.Units from Hampstead and Manchester responded at 7:21 a.m. Thursday for an alarm sounding on Legion Drive. They were out for 15 minutes.Equipment from Hampstead, Manchester and Arcadia of Baltimore County put out two fires on Trenton Mill Road on Thursday.Firefighters responded for a house fire at 9:25 a.m. and worked for 30 minutes, and for an apartment fire at 3:47 p.m., which keep them out for 90 minutes.

Accidents ruled causes of two fires Fires that killed an 11-year-old boy on Millers Island and heavily damaged a large industrial building in Woodlawn this month were both ruled accidental, Baltimore County fire investigators said yesterday. A lighted cigarette left on a porch railing caused the fire July 7 that killed Jacob Grey in a waterfront house in the 8900 block of Hinton Ave, the Fire Department said. The cigarette fell to the ground and ignited, officials said. Two adult relatives who were home at the time of the midmorning fire said they thought the boy had left the house and was playing outside.

City police are investigating the discovery of a body found in the trunk of a burning car in the 2100 block of Allendale Road just after 8 p.m. yesterday. The location is near Walbrook High School in West Baltimore's Fairmont neighborhood. The car was parked in the alley near two houses that appeared to be abandoned. The case is being classified as a suspicious death, said Officer Troy Harris. He could not provide details on the victim's gender nor on the make of the car. The city Fire Department got the initial call and will be working with the Police Department's arson squad in the investigation, Harris said.

Baltimore man, 31, convicted of killing Jason Beau Moody - accused of fatally shooting a Baltimore man in front of the man's young son - has been convicted of voluntary manslaughter and weapons charges but acquitted of the more serious charges of first- and second-degree murder. Moody, 31, is to be sentenced next month. The 10-year-old boy who witnessed the shooting was among the witnesses who testified. So, too, was Stephanie Madariaga, the boy's mother, who was also there and who pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the killing.

LOS ANGELES - One week after wildfires exploded across Southern California, the largest blaze in Ventura County was contained late yesterday, the two fires in San Diego County were expected to be under control by tomorrow, and Big Bear area residents were told they could go home today. "We deserved a break from Mother Nature, and we finally got one," said Bill Peters of the California Department of Forestry, almost euphoric over the inch of rain that fell over the 108,204-acre Simi fire through the night yesterday.

For the second time in less than a week, a suspicious fire broke out yesterday in an Upper Park Heights building used by an Orthodox Jewish congregation. Investigators from the city fire and police departments and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms have not ruled on the cause of a fire early Saturday at the Etz Chaim Center for Jewish Studies in the 3700 block of Fords Lane. But the second fire, which started shortly before 7 a.m. yesterday at Machzikei Torah Congregation in the 6200 block of Biltmore Ave., about a block from Etz Chaim, has been ruled an arson, fire and police spokesmen said.

Developers said yesterday that they would rebuild on the site of a historic Annapolis house destroyed by two arson fires last week - preserving the row of disputed properties in front of the city's planned parking garage on West Street. "We'll rebuild it to scale," said Gavin Buckley, one of the Annapolis developers whose bid to refurbish the block of five 100-year-old houses into commercial space was referred by city staff last week to the city council for consideration. An Annapolis man was arrested and charged Saturday with intentionally setting one of the two fires at 181 West St. Fire Capt.

A 72-year-old woman died in one of two fires that broke out in senior citizen apartment complexes in the city yesterday. Fire officials did not release the name of the dead woman, who was living in an apartment that caught fire in the Waters Towers high-rise building at 1400 E. Madison St. in East Baltimore, Fire Battalion Chief Hector L. Torres said. The cause was being investigated. Officials did not have a damage estimate for that blaze or one later yesterday morning at the St. James Terrace Apartments, 827 N. Arlington Ave. in West Baltimore.

Howard County firefighters responded to a fire yesterday morning in a Jessup truck stop motel and found evidence of two others -- all apparently the work of an arsonist. Firefighters were dispatched about 9 a.m. to the motel at the TA Baltimore South truck plaza in the 7400 block of Assateague Road and discovered that a sprinkler system had extinguished a fire in the trash room on the third floor. They also found that two fires in the ceiling of the fifth floor had burned themselves out. Damage was estimated at $3,000, mostly from water.

Fire heavily damaged a three-story apartment building in Westminster yesterday, one day after the adjacent Goodwill store was destroyed by flames.Fire officials said the two incidents were unrelated.Westminster Fire Department Lt. Charles J. Simpson said the six apartments at 79 W. Main St. were empty because of smoke damage from Thursday's fire."It's a big old house built in 1860 that has had several structures added to it," Simpson said. "The front part is a three-story brick building with six apartment units."

A two-alarm fire in a Northeast Baltimore apartment complex yesterday left 31 people homeless and caused more than $170,000 in damage, said a Fire Department spokesman.The fire started about 12: 30 p.m. in a basement apartment at 4805 Lorelly Ave. at Lorelly Court Apartments and was caused by a child playing with matches, said Battalion Chief Hector L. Torres, the spokesman.At least eight people jumped from second- and third-floor windows at the 12-unit building to escape the fire, Torres said.