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Modified 8-Jan-20
Created 23-Nov-19
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On November 22, 2019 just after midnight smoke was discovered at the ridgeline of the roof above several stores in the Edmondson Village Shopping Center in west Baltimore. A tactical box was dispatched. First arriving units started to open up the stores and had nothing showing inside. Meanwhile Truck 8 cut a hole in the roof and discovered fire throughout the whole underneath common roof area. The rest of Fire Box 53-50 was requested to be struck out. The fire had now taken over the whole roof area above the stores and was breaking through the slate shingles in several areas. Acting Battalion Chief 3 arrived and took Command, made it a working fire and requested two additional truck companies to access the roof. The second alarm was struck out a few minutes later.
Due to heavy fire and deteriorating conditions exterior operations were ordered and a third alarm was struck out about 15 minutes later. By now heavy smoke and fire conditions were consuming all of the involved stores. In the rear the stores were about 75’ deep from the front and one-story tall. Companies were having trouble with visibility and gaining entry due to heavy steel doors and heavy smoke conditions blowing from the front side.
In the next three hours several more special calls brought additional apparatus and manpower to the scene. The fire eventually dropped down into the stores consuming everything in them. As the fire was being fed by natural gas, BGE was called to shut down the gas supply to the buildings. The adjacent street had to be dug up to access the gas main to be shut down. It was finally secured at about 0630 hours. And when the fire was finally placed under control around 1015 hours a total of 9 stores were completely destroyed and several others suffered smoke and water damage. No injuries were reported. Units remained on the scene for most of the day chasing hot spots and investigating a cause.
This historic shopping center has quite a history. It opened up on May 7, 1947 and was heralded as a “suburban shopping center of harmonious design, said to be unique in American city planning”. It was situated on 10 acres of land with a terraced parking lot that could handle 500-600 automobiles. It was one of the first regional suburban shopping centers on the east coast, as well as the nation, that was designed with shoppers and their vehicles in mind. It originally housed 29 shops that sold everything from fur coats to auto supplies to ice cream.
Since its opening it has suffered several major disastrous fires. In November of 1963 there was a 6-alarm fire in the Tommy Tucker 5 & 10 cent store. Which incidentally occupied the same batch of stores as this fire did. In June of 1987 there was a 4-alarm fire in a Rite-Aid store in the mid-section of the shopping center. Then again in September of 1990 a 2-alarm fire hit a vacant store and finally in September of 2008 a 4-alarm fire with a major wall collapse took out 4 stores in the section just to the west of this devastating fire.
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