Home»BALTIMORE CITY FIRE DEPARTMENT»INCIDENTS»2017 Fires and Incidents»2-Alarms Sinclair La. & Belair Rd. 8-2-17

In the early morning hours of August 2, 2017 firefighters were dispatched to what would be a long drawn-out operation to battle a stubborn fire in the former Esskay meat processing plant. The large 2 and 3-story brick complex is located in northeast Baltimore at Belair Road and Sinclair Lane bounded by Homestead Street on the building’s west side. The building was built in 1919 and the plant opened in 1923. Over the years as business grew the building size was expanded several times. The company declared bankruptcy in 1974 and ceased operations in 1975. It has sat mostly vacant since then. Over the years sections of the building have been occupied by several types of businesses that have come and gone including a church.
In October of 1977 a 4-alarm fire occurred in the building that left 7 firefighters injured. Again, in October 2006, a 3-alarm fire broke out in the building that also resulted in Fire Department operations that would take more than 24 hours to bring under control.
In this most recent blaze Fire Box 33-21 was dispatched around 0200 hours. Firefighters were greeted with heavy smoke conditions and fire showing from the Sinclair Lane side of the 2-story structure. Battalion Chief 2, in Command, immediately ordered exterior operations due to the size and condition of the building. The second alarm was struck out at 0215 and companies set up ladder pipes and monitor pipes around the building. By daylight all of the visible fire was knocked down and companies continued to pour water into the building as smoke continued to push out of every opening around the building.
Crews on the scene were relieved by the oncoming shift and companies spent the whole day trying to get inside and extinguish the smoldering fire. A private contractor arrived on the scene and began tearing down the wall on the Sinclair Lane side to get to the buried fire inside, but to no avail.
Around 1600 hours that evening heavy fire once again broke out on the top floor and roof of the 2-story section of the building. A full box assignment was dispatched again to this side and the fire was again knocked down within an hour. Units remained on the fire ground for the next two days. Companies were rotated to and from the scene while continuing to pour water into the door and window openings of the building. They were finally able to get into the section of the building where they found large bales of smoldering rags and clothing. These were the cause of all of the smoke issuing from the building. Firefighters began to pull apart these bales by hand and bring the burning rags outside where they could finally be extinguished with hand lines. The whole building was littered throughout with various kind of debris including abandoned automobiles.
The fire was declared completely extinguished on August 5th at 0200 hours, some 72 hours after it started. No injuries were reported.