The site of the house fire in Baltimore.Photo:Baltimore City Fire Department/Facebook
Baltimore City Fire Department/Facebook
A house fire in Baltimore took the lives of three people — including two children.
The Baltimore City Fire Department said in aFacebook postthat the fire broke out on Tuesday in a home located in eastern Baltimore. When fire crews responded to the scene, they observed “heavy fire and smoke” coming from the second floor of the building.
On Thursday, officials confirmed that a third victim of the fire — identified as a 13-year-old girl — also died.
BCFD did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
As the community mourns, Baltimore City Councilman Zeke Cohen told CBS News on Wednesday, “We rally around each other.”
He added: “My heart is really broken for this family. Just speaking as a father with two young kids myself, there is nothing worse that I could think of than what occurred.”
Baltimore City Fire Chief James W. Wallace had described the fire in a Tuesdaynews conferenceas “an extraordinarily challenging fire” for the firefighters and first responders on the scene.
“This fire, when we arrived, was well in the advanced stages,” he said. “Our firefighters, they had a different fire [on the] first and second floors. Fire [had] blown out of the front door, cracked the second-floor windows.”
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Wallace said that he anticipated that the investigation into the fire would be a “prolonged” one and that determining the cause of the fire would be a part of that investigation.
“Although there’s a bravado persona that comes with being a firefighter, we’re also human, so we are never void of emotions and all that comes with that,” BCFD spokesman Kevin Cartwright told the outlet. “We have children. Just to think of the loss of someone and you’re bringing them out lifeless — it’s chilling.”
source: people.com
