The pair of five-alarm fires that ripped through downtown Baltimore in a 12-hour span left behind charred century-old buildings — and forced business owners in Mount Vernon and The Block to confront closing for days or even months.
A fire across from the historic Mount Vernon Plaza early Tuesday reduced restaurants — including Donna's Cafe, a neighborhood fixture — to sopping, smoldering messes. Shattered attic windows framed views of gray sky, as flames appeared to have consumed the building roof.
The fire forced four other restaurants to close, although some could reopen in coming days.
The double whammy "strikes me as being unprecedented," said Kirby Fowler, president of the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore, an advocacy group. "Other than the 1904 fire, we probably haven't had this back-to-back incidence of fire in downtown in decades. It's tough to deal with this."
Commuters can expect lingering effects of the fires Wednesday morning. Street closings carried out as a result of the fires will remain in effect for the morning rush hour, according to the city's Department of Transportation.
Charles is closed from Centre to Madison streets, while Madison is closed at St. Paul Street, and Cathedral Street is closed at Chase Street. Baltimore Street is off-limits to traffic between Holliday and Gay streets, and Holliday is shut down between Baltimore and Fayette streets.
Only hours before the Mt. Vernon fire, a blaze hit several strip clubs and eateries a mile south in the city's faded adult entertainment district.
Both fires went to five alarms, drawing well over a hundred firefighters as the winter sky filled with spectacular orange flames and thick billowing smoke.
The second fire broke out around 1:30 a.m. at Charles and Madison streets, in the city's cultural district, while firefighters were still at the scene of the fire on The Block. Fire Chief James Clack said the later fire took nearly 12 hours to bring under control, meaning it no longer had the potential to spread.
Fowler praised firefighters for keeping a "terrible 24 hours" from turning even worse. Almost no one was hurt — two firefighters and a civilian suffered minor injuries at the Mount Vernon fire — and the buildings appear to have survived structurally intact, despite signs of significant damage.
But Fowler expressed concern for affected businesses. "Particularly on Charles Street, we lost some good establishments and hope to have them back soon," he said after visiting both fire scenes.
The fires revived a long-standing dispute between the department and the firefighters union. Firefighters Union 734 cited the response of crews from nearby counties as evidence that the department's station closings and other cuts are endangering city residents. A department spokesman called the union complaints overblown and old.
The cause of both fires has yet to be determined.
"We do know [the Mt. Vernon fire] started on a lower floor and went up the building through some pipe chases, got up in the attic space," Clack said. "The guys did a great job, but it was a very tough fire."
The structure at the corner, known as Park Plaza, dates to 1842, according to property records. Offices and restaurants occupy the five floors.
Upper floors of the building are leased by the architecture firm Murphy & Dittenhafer, Zenith Healthcare, Baltimore Education Scholarship Trust, Maryland Capital Management, and management offices for Donna's and the Helmand.
In addition to Donna's, restaurants damaged by the fire or by water include Indigma, My Thai, Thairish and the Helmand.
Donna's co-owner Alan Hirsch estimated it will take four to six months to reopen the cafe, and it appeared My Thai and Indigma also suffered heavy damage. Thairish and the Helmand, received only minor water damage and were expected to reopen in the coming days.
"It's hard to imagine anything is going to open immediately with the scale of the apparent damage both from the fire and water damage," said Kevin O'Keefe, a spokesman for the building's owner.
On Tuesday afternoon, crews shoveled charred debris and soaked piles of ashes. Workers standing in cranes pulled burned wood off windows. At street level, trees were bent over from ice, and icicles dangled from the tattered awning of Indigma, an Indian restaurant.
At The Block, the 400 block of East Baltimore Street remained closed to traffic Tuesday. Late in the morning, firefighters used a ladder truck to inspect rooftops of the affected buildings, which range in height from one to four stories. Records indicate that the buildings date to at least 1904, when the great Baltimore fire toppled most of the buildings on that block.
Clack said that officials from the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were helping investigate the fire because the "the size and the scope of the fire investigation exceeded our resource capacity, the fire was high-profile and was a major disruption."
Wooden stairs inside one building were charred, but the scorched brick facades appeared sturdy, said Fowler of the Downtown Partnership.
Across Baltimore Street, the Hustler Club's marquee was lit up — "All dances $15!!!" — but the club itself was closed. Of The Block's 18 or so strip clubs, only Norma Jean's was open to customers, said its owner, Peter Ireland, and that was only because it sits on a side street.
"They're all closed, everybody," Ireland said. "Not that it's doing me any good. When you got Baltimore Street closed, you're cutting all the traffic off."
The fire affected four buildings on the north side of the block. Amateur video captured the roof of one building collapsing.
The structure on the corner of Baltimore and Holliday streets has been vacant for more than a year and a half. Five years ago, the Philadelphia-based Sherwood Family Limited Partnership paid $415,000 for it. Fowler said the owner had planned to open a fast-food restaurant. Calls to Sherwood and its Baltimore representative, Michael Holland, were not returned.
Tenants of the other buildings include three strip clubs — the Plaza, Blue Mirrors and Lust — a pornography purveyor called Gayety Show World and two eateries: Crazy John's and New York Fried Chicken. The other property owners either could not be reached or did not return calls.
Crazy John's has its passionate customers, noted Mike Evitts, spokesman for the Downtown Partnership. "It's one of those uniquely Baltimore places where you'd see judges and firemen and ladies who work next door," he said. Sources told The Baltimore Sun that the carryout could reopen within a day if nearby buildings are deemed stable.
The Downtown Partnership has been working with Block property and club owners to fix up the area, which was once famous for Blaze Starr and burlesque acts but in recent decades has been saddled with a reputation for seediness, crime and thinly veiled prostitution.
"We're taking no pleasure in the fact that a fire occurred here last night," Fowler said. "We've been working with the club owners to clean up their act and have been making progress."
He said it's possible the fire will have minimal long-term impact: "There's a very good chance the fire will mean very little about the future of The Block. Whatever [property] uses were in place [Monday] morning can be reactivated by the property owners after they assess the damage."
But he said it's possible some tenants and property owners might "get discouraged and decide to look elsewhere for opportunities."
While the partnership will keep working with club owners on improvements, Fowler said, "I certainly think a dissipation of adult entertainment establishments to industrial areas is more consistent with the future of a diverse downtown."
According to Fowler's organization, 40,000 people live in a one-mile radius of Light and Pratt streets, and 106,000 work in that area.
Ireland, the owner of Norma Jean's and a 25-year Block veteran, predicted the fire will have a "big effect" on the area, at least in the short term.
"When you go down there and you see lights out, ugly-looking buildings that are burnt out, it's not a place you might want to come down to see and be entertained," Ireland said. "I don't think it's real attractive to start with. Some of these people don't want to fix anything up."
The Mount Vernon blaze challenged firefighters because the buildings have been renovated numerous times, Clack said, creating "void spaces behind the walls and in the attic area" that made the blaze unusually difficult to fight.
The fire began on the lower floors and raced up air shafts to higher floors. Around 2 a.m., firefighters were perched on high ladders, smashing windows with axes as shattered glass rained on the street. Swirls of thick smoke were silhouetted against the twinkling holiday lights on the Washington Monument.
Two alarms of fire trucks, engines and other equipment reached the scene, but three additional alarms were called as the fire continued to rage. Flames crackled along the second and fourth floors of the buildings and shards of wooden window casings and papers swirled down to the ground.
As the blaze intensified around 3 a.m., firefighters blasted truck and engine horns to signal crews to evacuate the building.
About an hour later, as fourth-floor windows of the buildings glowed bright orange and flames shot up from the roofs, a firefighter reported on the scanner: "Chief, this thing seems to be building."
Shortly afterward, a fifth alarm was called, bringing crews from as far away as Baltimore and Anne Arundel Counties, some of whom needed directions to find the monument.
Firefighters stood on the roofs of adjacent buildings across Charles Street, prepared to extinguish flames if heavy winds carried them across the street.
Equipment filled at least six blocks surrounding the Washington Monument, with crews arriving at a steady pace. The hum of big trucks, the whine of sirens and crackling radio transmissions could be heard in the Mount Vernon neighborhood throughout the early morning.
The bitter cold caused water from hoses to freeze. Ice coated streets and sidewalks in a one-block radius of the fire, causing firefighters to stumble and grasp trucks and railings to keep from falling.
Fire commanders repeatedly radioed requests for salt trucks beginning at 2:30 a.m., and Clack said he believed fire officials made the first call to the city Department of Transportation for a salt truck around 3.
But Adrienne Barnes, a spokeswoman for the Department of Transportation, said the request came at 5:28 a.m., and that a salt truck arrived at the scene at 6:45 a.m. It was unclear what caused the discrepancy in times, or what prompted the delay in deploying salt.
Sun reporters Michael Dresser, Liz F. Kay, Peter Hermann and Richard Gorelick contributed to this article.