Baltimore firefighters battled a two-alarm fire late Thursday night and Friday morning in Canton. One person was injured.
The fire broke out in the 1200 block of S. Clinton St. at about 10:45 p.m., and escalated to a second alarm within five minutes of firefighters arrival, said fire department spokesman Sam Johnson. The first firefighters on the scene reported flames shooting 5 to 10 feet into the air from the roof and second floor windows of a rowhome, he said. The fire spread from one house to the two next to it, he said. One house was unoccupied.
A 60-year-old woman who jumped from her back deck was taken to a hospital for treatment of burns, and is expected to survive, Johnson said.
Firefighters entered one of the homes but had to evacuate due to unsafe fire conditions.
Fire crews were cutting into the roof of one house. Flames were seen coming from the roof of one house while smoke poured from the entrance of another. Smoke was visible over a large area of Canton, hazing over businesses like Towson Hot Bagels blocks away.
Ben Perovich, 33, said he heard his next-door neighbors yell — "which they never do" — and smelled smoke. Realizing there was a fire, he pushed out an air conditioning unit from their first floor window, he said. But the neighbors were trapped by the fire on the second floor, and they ended up jumping from their balcony, Perovich said.
Barefoot, Perovich watched from across the street while firefighters cut into his roof.
A group of onlookers tried to find Perovich a charger for his dead cell phone, as he said his family was worried about him.
"I'm just glad they made it out," he said of his neighbors. "Because it was pretty scary."
Two families were displaced because of the fire, the department said. The cause is under investigation.
An earlier version misstated the block of the fire. The Sun regrets the error.