No reports of injuries, according to Fire Department officials
By Gus G. Sentementes
The Baltimore Sun
Copyright 2007 The Baltimore Sun Company
All Rights Reserved
 AP Photo/Steve Ruark Baltimore firefighters work to extinguish the blaze, Tuesday. |
BALTIMORE — A West Baltimore church caught fire this morning and several people who were doing construction work inside the building escaped without injury, fire officials said.
The fire broke out about 10:30 a.m., and police and fire crews quickly responded to the scene, according to area residents. Fire officials said there were no reports of injuries.
A witness, Shaun Capps, 23, happened to be driving by the Gateway Church of Christ when he saw smoke pouring out of the two-story building.
Capps said he got out of his car, ran toward the church, and talked to several people he saw flee the building. Then, Capps said, he saw a man run out of the church with a smoldering charcoal grill, toss it in the back of a pickup truck, and speed away.
“Whatever they were cooking is probably well done by now,” Capps said.
Chief Kevin Cartwright, a city Fire Department spokesman, said the three-alarm fire drew more than 90 firefighters to West Baltimore’s Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood. Huge plumes of black and white smoke could be seen rising from the church, and filled the neighborhood in the area of the church located at the southeast corner of Baker Street and North Fulton Avenue.
Fire officials said the building was once a theater that had been used for different purposes over the years.
Fire Chief William J. Goodwin Jr. said that workers had been doing demolition work inside the church for the past three days. He said fire investigators would be interviewing them as part of the investigation into the cause of the blaze.