The Associated Press
BALTIMORE — An intense fire torched an apartment building early Saturday, killing three people and forcing 11 families to scramble for safety from the smoke and flames, a fire official said.
The blaze, which was reported at about 3 a.m., burned three apartments in a vertical row in a three-story building on Forest Park Avenue in the northwest section of the city, said Baltimore Fire Department spokesman Chief Kevin Cartwright.
Most residents of the roughly 12 apartments escaped on their own. Firefighters found those killed in the blaze in a basement apartment, Cartwright said. Authorities were not immediately able to determine their identities, genders or ages, he said.
Authorities were investigating the cause of the fire. It comes less than two months after a row house fire in the city killed eight people, five of them children.