Woman’s body recovered from Barclay rowhouse a day after 3-alarm fire

Burned and brittled wood, crumpled bricks and a back door were all that was left of a rowhouse that partially collapsed after a three-alarm fire the previous day in Baltimore’s Barclay neighborhood. At the rear of the burned-out home is where firefighters found a woman’s body Friday morning, officials said.

Baltimore City firefighters were called to the area around 12:20 p.m. Thursday and the blaze escalated to a three-alarm fire by 1 p.m., officials said. The fire in the 2200 block of Guilford Avenue spread to neighboring cobblestone rowhomes.

As firefighters sought to control the blaze, they spoke to family members who said a man and a woman might be in the home, Fire Chief James Wallace said at a news conference Friday. The man escaped. Firefighters got the fire under control within hours, but the search for and recovery of the woman took much longer.

“We had a high degree of confidence that there was a victim inside of that building, but we had a low degree of confidence on where in that building the person was,” Wallace said.

For safety reasons, Wallace said, firefighters paused their search by 2 a.m. Friday; they resumed around 8 a.m. The body was recovered around 9:30 a.m. and transported to the chief medical examiner’s office, the chief said.

Officials had not identified the woman as of Friday afternoon. The primary challenge to the search, Wallace said, was structural integrity.

“Oftentimes, these structures can collapse without provocation after a fire. So we’re going in, we’re trying to remove the building very methodically so we don’t have an overall collapse,” Wallace said. “We do the best we can to preserve the integrity and, equally if not more important, to protect our responders.”

One firefighter was injured in the fire, officials said.

The cause of the fire is under investigation, said Khalilah Yancey, a spokesperson for the Baltimore City Fire Department.

Representatives of the National Capital & Greater Chesapeake Region of the American Red Cross said they are assisting residents of six households affected by the fire.

There have been at least two fire fatalities in Baltimore this year — both in townhouses. In January, a 65-year-old man died in an Upton rowhouse. In March, a child died after going into cardiac arrest in the 500 block of North Mosher Street.