The headquarters of one of the city's most active neighborhood watch groups was damaged in a fire in Northwest Baltimore early Wednesday.
An apartment that houses the Baltimore Shomrim Safety Patrol, a 24-hour neighborhood watch group with more than 30 volunteers, sustained about $20,000 worth of damage. City fire officials said an unattended stove burner in a unit in the complex set off the two-alarm blaze, which displaced several residents.
Shomrim used an apartment in the building for meetings, equipment storage and emergency staging, the group said in a statement. Jackets, flashlights, communication equipment and a color copier and printer used to print missing persons fliers and other notices were damaged. The group is raising money to replace lost equipment through the website, shomrimfire.com.
Shomrim serves areas of Northwest Baltimore and parts of Baltimore County.
"We will have to find a new location for storage and meetings, and as the fire just occurred today we will have to start looking for alternate locations," Nathan D. Willner, the group's liaison to police, said. "We at times utilize synagogues for organizational meetings and we will have to rely on those locations for future meetings until we have a new permanent location."
The fire occurred around 7 a.m. in the 3600 block of Fallstaff Road, according to the city's Office of Emergency Management, and caused delays on Park Heights Avenue. Several units in the apartment building were damaged in the blaze.
Baltimore Fire Capt. Roman Clark said the fire began when a "stove burner [was] left on unattended."
Clark said no injuries were reported, but that the building sustained $600,000 damage. The American Red Cross of the Chesapeake Region said volunteers assisted 60 people from 19 families displaced by the fire.
The Red Cross met the families immediate needs for food, clothing, seasonal items and transportation.
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