Cyanide poisoning did not send 30 volunteer firefighters and two bystanders to five area hospitals Monday night after a
four-alarm blaze in Manchester. But fire investigators have ruled out little else.
Thirty firefighters "dropped like flies and we don't know why," said Steve Miller, Manchester's volunteer fire chief.
Dr. Roger Stone, associate emergency medical services director Carroll County, arrived at the fire in the six-apartment converted barn on Locust Street around 10:30 p.m. He said a Baltimore County hazardous materials team quickly ruled out cyanide and carbon monoxide as the cause of the dizziness and breathing difficulty reported by firefighters.
"Cyanide was not found at that time," Dr. Stone said. "Also, the carbon monoxide levels were low in the patients that were the most seriously ill."
Doctors at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, where 17 people were treated, also have ruled out carbon monoxide and cyanide, said Paul Umansky, hospital spokesman.
Two firefighters still at the hospital were scheduled to be released from intensive care last night. One is expected to return home tomorrow and the other should be released from the hospital within the next few days, Mr. Umansky said.
"These are categorized as nonspecific symptoms, which could be caused by a variable number of inhaled or absorbed toxins from the smoke in the area," said Dr. Stone, an emergency room doctor at Carroll County General Hospital for two years and a specialist in emergency medicine for 5 1/2 years.
"It depends on what is in a barn that old. It could contain materials that have since been outlawed that could release any number of things," he said.
Chief Miller said all of the 100 firefighters were wearing air masks and full gear but after fighting the blaze for more than three hours, some began complaining of chest pains and shortness of breath.
Chief Miller said investigators are looking at everything from plastic pipes used when the 1820s barn was converted to apartments in the mid-1970s to Freon gas used in air conditioners to the possibility that pesticides may have soaked the timbers of the barn over the years, causing the release of toxic fumes during the fire.
Air tanks used by firefighters also were being tested by a Pennsylvania company to determine if contaminates were present, Chief Miller said.
Two deputy state fire marshals spent most of the day trying to determine the exact location and cause of the blaze.
Manchester firefighters returned to the burned building at 3:44 p.m. yesterday when some of the materials reignited. They extinguished the fire within 30 minutes.
Many of the residents returned yesterday to gather their belongings after spending the night with friends or relatives.
Charles Renn, 91, whose apartment was directly over the ground-floor apartment where the blaze started, lost everything, including the daily journal he had kept for years.
Mr. Renn, a retired microbiology teacher at Harvard and the Johns Hopkins universities, stayed at his son's home in Sparks Monday night. His daughter-in-law Pat Renn drove him to the burned apartment building to retrieve his car yesterday.
Carrie Clark and Josh Robinson, who occupy the ground-level apartment where the fire started, said they left to go to a food market and rent a video Monday afternoon.
Mr. Robinson said he was greeted by a wall of flames when he opened the door to his apartment around 3:15 p.m. Ms. Clark lost a large doll collection in the fire.
Mr. Robinson and another neighbor, Wayne Ritz, woke Mr. Renn and helped him out of the building. The floor of Mr. Renn's apartment eventually collapsed.
Bill Wolford, who lives in the apartment at the opposite end of the 62-foot-long building, said firefighters were able to bring the blaze under control before it reached his apartment. He and firefighters were able to salvage his smoke-damaged furniture and belongings, including six rifles and shotguns and several mounted animal head trophies. Mr. Wolford said the fish in his large $2,000 fish tank were still alive.
Joanne Eiser and Mike Kurcheski, who rented apartment No. 3 and stayed with friends Monday night, returned yesterday morning to gather their furniture. Much of their belongings had been removed by firefighters and stored overnight in a nearby shed.
Kim Unkart and Shawn Martin, who lived in a ground-level apartment, were able to get most of their property out Monday and returned yesterday morning to load it into a pickup truck.
Ms. Unkart rescued her gray African parrot Monday afternoon and said the parrot woke her yesterday morning at the home of a friend with a cheery "Get up, hello, hello," then mimicked the tones of someone dialing a Touch-Tone phone.