Home»BALTIMORE CITY FIRE DEPARTMENT»INCIDENTS»2014 Fires and Incidents»2-Alarms 508 N. Howard St. 9-24-14

On September 24, 2014 firefighters battled a 2-Alarm fire in two vacant buildings in downtown Baltimore. Around 1200Noon workers were using acetylene torches, doing some cutting work on the marquee of the old abandoned Mayfair Theatre located at 508 N. Howard Street. The dropping sparks apparently ignited the plywood that was covering the openings of the vacant building.
At 1220 box area 23-4 was dispatched and units arrived to find fire burning on the front exterior of the theatre and a vacant building next door at 506. Battalion Chief 6 arrived and set up Command and made it a working fire. Crews initiated an aggressive attack on the fire. By now the fire had extended to the interior second floor of the theatre and the first through fourth floors and roof area of the Bravo exposure which was also completely boarded up. That building was partially collapsed on the upper floors and roof area in the rear. Due to the condition of the building and inaccessibility of the fire Battalion Chief 6 ordered a second alarm and units transitioned to exterior operations.
As more units arrived the Light Rail was shut down as the tracks run right down the center of Howard Street. The aerial units navigated around the overhead electric lines and set up their ladder pipes around the buildings. A special call was requested for the snorkel (Water Tower 1) at 1253 hours.
70 firefighters with 25 pieces of apparatus battled the fire for an hour before it was under control. They remained on the scene with handlines extinguishing hot spots for another two hours. Fire Investigation was also on the scene. There were no injuries reported.