Eleven people died in fires in Maryland in December, making it the second-deadliest month of 2014, according to state fire officials.
The state counted 62 fire deaths last year, said Deputy State Fire Marshal Bruce D. Bouch. March had the most deaths with 16, he said.
The total number of fire fatalities is down from 2013, when there were 69. There were 53 deaths in 2012.
Fire deaths in Maryland have been declining over the past several decades since peaking at 129 in 1988, according to statewide figures.
In December, two people died in house fires in Baltimore. On Friday, a city Fire Department spokesman identified a woman who died after a Dec. 13 fire at a home in the 1500 block of Mountmor Court in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood as 26-year-old Myesha Cooper. She died of smoke inhalation; the fire was caused by unattended cooking.
A city Fire Department spokesman also identified a man who died of burns he suffered when a tent in a homeless encampment at 3300 Potee St. caught fire as Dana Thomas, age unknown. Officials said the fire was caused by smoking.
Baltimore had 17 fire fatalities in 2014, and 21 in 2013, according to the Fire Department.
Baltimore County had two fire fatalities in December, according to the fire marshal's office.
In Prince George's County, three people died after separate house fires last month, including a fire on Christmas Eve and one on Christmas Day, state officials said.
A 70-year-old woman also died in a kitchen fire in her Ellicott City home Dec. 29.
Also in December, a Gaithersburg woman and her two sons died as a result of a fire caused when a plane crashed into a Montgomery County house. Three people aboard the jet were killed in the crash.
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