A woman believed to be about 50 years old died Tuesday night at an area hospital after a fire broke out in the bedroom of her rowhouse in the Mill Hill section of Southwest Baltimore, said a city Fire Department spokesman. Her name was withheld pending notification of family members, said Chief Kevin Cartwright, the spokesman. She was the city's 24th fire fatality this year, compared with 19 for the same time last year, Cartwright said. Reported at 7:59 p.m. in the 2500 block of Dulaney St., the fire was confined to a burning mattress in a second-floor bedroom of an end-of-group dwelling and was quickly extinguished. Cartwright said the first three of at least six pieces of apparatus arrived at the scene within three minutes.

- Richard Irwin