Warehouse Fire Leads To Other Fires Throughout Baltimore
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- High winds fuel several fires across Baltimore City. In the past 24 hours, firefighters have been hard at work dousing flames that continued to build because of high winds. Monday morning, two boats at the marina caught fire and sank just hours after a warehouse went up in smoke.
Rochelle Ritchie has more on both fires and their investigations.
There's no word on what caused the boats or the warehouse to catch fire. The family had just moved into the home Sunday when tragedy struck. Embers, according to police, from the warehouse fire caused several properties to go up in flames. Now that family is homeless and their landlord is trying to determine if the home can be fixed.
The US Coast Guard is teaming up with Baltimore City Fire and the Maryland Department of Environment to figure out what caused two boats to catch fire and sink early Monday morning. The 911 caller says the boat glowing in flames was drifting across the harbor where it hit another boat, causing another fire.
High winds were a problem for firefighters battling the boat fire across the city over the last 24 hours.
On Sunday afternoon, cell phone video posted on Facebook shows a raging inferno at an abandoned warehouse.
Baltimore City fire officials say the fire broke out just before 4 p.m. Forty mile an hour winds sent hot embers from the blaze several blocks away, sparking numerous fires.
"We ended up having six fires other than the warehouse fires going at the same time of the warehouse fire," said Baltimore City Fire Department Captain Roman Clark.
A majority of the homes damaged were vacant---except one.
"This is my rental property," said the landlord.
The landlord says his tenants just moved in Sunday and barely had a chance to unpack before the abandoned home next door caught fire and ultimately damaged his property, too.
"I fixed it; I put in everything brand new," he said.
The flames were so intense, firefighters from Howard, Baltimore and Anne Arundel counties were all called in to assist city firefighters in putting out the blaze.
Fire officials say they are unsure as to what caused the warehouse to go up in smoke but some don't believe the embers could travel as far as they did and cause so much damage.
"I don't buy that idea that something came and burned the house," he said.
Both fires remain under investigation.
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