By Randy Leonard
Baltimore City Paper
BALTIMORE — At 11:51 a.m. on Feb. 9, a radio call went out:
“T2 to Command. We have a down firefighter on Charlie side. On the second floor. Repeat. Down firefighter. Second Floor. Charlie side roof.”
“T2" was the Baltimore City Fire Department’s (BCFD) Truck Co. 2, alerting BCFD Lt. Joseph Crest that the limp, burned body of trainee firefighter Racheal M. Wilson had just been pulled from an out-of-control blaze onto the roof of the second floor at the rear of 145 S. Calverton Road. The rowhouse had been set ablaze by BCFD trainers as part of a “live burn” exercise designed to expose Wilson and her classmates to the chaos of a real fire call in typical Baltimore housing stock. Despite CPR administered at the scene and quick evacuation to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, Wilson was pronounced dead at 12:50 p.m.
Representatives of the city Fire Investigation Bureau, the Baltimore Police Department’s arson unit, and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, as well as the city fire marshal, Capt. Robert Doedderlein, were called to the scene. Attending a conference nearly 6,000 miles away in Israel, Baltimore Fire Chief William J. Goodwin Jr. received word of the incident via his BlackBerry and made plans to catch a flight back to the United States that night.
Full Story: Under Fire; Embattled Fire Chief William Goodwin Jr. Faces The Heat