Home»BALTIMORE CITY FIRE DEPARTMENT»INCIDENTS»2018 Fires and Incidents»1-Alarm Brush Fires, Clifton Park 4-22-18

Around 1500 hours on April 22, 2018 numerous reports of brush fires began to pour into the Fire Communications Office. Four different locations were reported and units were sent out to each location. All of them were right along the CSX Railroad right-of-way in east Baltimore. Apparently sparks from a train passing through the area started igniting the dry brush and leaves along the railroad tracks as it moved along.
The four locations were Kirk Avenue near 25th Street, right across the street from Truck 5’s quarters; Saint Lo Drive near Sinclair Lane, in Clifton Park; in the rear of the 2600 block of Matthews Street, and behind the 3500 block of Ravenwood Avenue. Several units were dispatched to each location as the reports came in until Fire Communications figured out that they were all related as one large incident. Two Battalion Chiefs and the Shift Commander were then dispatched to coordinate all four incident locations. The fires were all along the tracks and not easily accessible to apparatus so lines were hand dragged to the individual locations to extinguish the fires.
CSX Railroad dispatched one of their rail cars to assess the situation on the tracks. Rail traffic was shut down while the firefighting operations were ongoing. Baltimore County also sent one of their brush units to assist with access to some of the track areas. The fires were spread out over an area of about 1 ½ miles along the tracks. About 70 firefighters with 23 pieces of apparatus brought the fires under control in about 2 ½ hours.