Baltimore firefighter killed in rowhouse blaze identified; two of four injured firefighters released from hospital Friday

City officials identified the Baltimore firefighter who lost his life Thursday while battling a fire that ripped through a group of rowhouses in Northwest Baltimore, the latest blow to a department still reeling from the death of three others last year.

Fire officials said Friday that Rodney Pitts III, 31, of Baltimore, died from his injuries after he and other firefighters entered a burning rowhouse around 3:45 p.m. in the 5200 block of Linden Heights Avenue. Four firefighters were hospitalized with burn wounds Thursday, and two have since been released, Baltimore Fire Chief James Wallace said at a Friday news conference.

Pitts had been in active service as a firefighter and EMT since August after joining the department last year. He was stationed in Park Heights on Engine 29.

“I pinned his badge on him in August,” Wallace said.

A Baltimore native, Pitts was eager to serve his hometown, something his family reflected on during a Thursday evening visit with Mayor Brandon Scott.

”That’s what I think we should be talking about. Someone who loved this place so much that they would be willing to risk their life, and, in his case, tragically give his life for this city,” Scott said.

A person who answered the door at a house listed for Pitts declined to comment Friday.

Lt. Dillon Rinaldo, a six-year veteran of the department, remained in critical but stable condition Friday. Firefighter Seth Robbins, a 17-year veteran, also remained hospitalized. Keith Brooks II, a 14-year veteran, and firefighter Tavon Marshall, a 3-year veteran, were treated and released.

Scott and Wallace came to Friday’s press conference from the burn center at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center where they visited with Rinaldo’s parents and fiancee.

“Beautiful people,” an emotional Wallace said. “Deeply hurt. Much like our members are. We’re wrapping our arms around them to support them.”

The investigation into the cause of the fire is being led by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Baltimore Police’s arson and homicide units also are investigating.

One person was taken into custody after the fire but was released after being interviewed. No city leader would say whether arson is suspected.

Pitts’ death comes less than two years after three firefighters were killed and a fourth was seriously injured in a vacant rowhouse fire on South Stricker Street in New Southwest/Mount Clare, a neighborhood in Central Southwest Baltimore. That fire was one of the deadliest for fire responders in the city’s history.

On Thursday afternoon, the roaring fire consumed four rowhouses on Linden Heights Avenue, a block of brick two-story homes with small grass yards. One house is a rental, two are vacant properties, and one was occupied by an owner, according to city housing data.

Wallace said Friday that he didn’t know how the fire started or in which house.

“This particular fire evolved so quickly,” Wallace said. “Our members, whether they’re firefighters or paramedics or EMTs, they make extraordinarily significant decisions on a split-second basis. They do it every day.”

Pitts was inside an occupied house sandwiched between two vacant properties when firefighters were overwhelmed by the blaze’s intensity. Three of the four injured firefighters were helping with rescue efforts.

The homeowner, who escaped her house after smoke poured into her kitchen, declined to comment Friday. Her brother, Randolph Parker, said the family has worried for years that a fire would break out at one of the vacant rowhouses on the block, where some homeless people take shelter.

“Our worst fear has come to fruition,” Parker said.

His sister had just had a ramp installed so her husband could visit from his nursing home. The house, which Parker’s sister has owned for more than 40 years, was still smoldering when Parker left the scene around 11:30 p.m. Thursday, he said.

As a strong scent of ash lingered in the air Friday morning, neighbors in the Woodmere neighborhood walked by to inspect the damage. Several neighbors described seeing a huge plume of dark smoke. The chaotic scene shut down part of West Belvedere Avenue, a busy road that runs past Pimlico Race Track.

Fire and ATF investigators wore helmets and used a drone to collect footage of the wreckage.

Outside the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center on Thursday night, members of the Baltimore Fire Department lined up and saluted as an ambulance carrying the body of their colleague crawled down Lombard Street. Other members flanked the ambulance and walked in a long, quiet procession.

The department has emphasized training members in rescue operations since the South Stricker Street fire, and recently budgeted to add four more safety officers to its ranks.

“What I can tell you is we attacked this fire like we attack many fires,” Wallace said at a Thursday news conference. “We had a rapid intervention team in place. We had crews in the front. We had crews in the rear. I’m told some of the initial indicators were that this fire just started to grow very rapidly. They don’t know why.”

The January 2022 deaths of Kelsey Sadler, Kenny Lacayo and Paul Butrim devastated the city and spurred changes to Baltimore’s fire operations, including when firefighters should enter abandoned buildings that are at risk of collapsing.

It also refocused attention on Baltimore’s chronic problem with vacant or abandoned properties that pockmark the city, and in some cases sprawl entire blocks. Since the 2022 fatal fire, Baltimore brought its vacant housing stock to the lowest level it has seen in years.

Thursday’s tragedy c two weeks after the City Council approved Wallace to lead the grieving agency. Former Chief Niles Ford resigned in December after a line-of-duty death report by officials from Baltimore and other jurisdictions publicized organizational and procedural missteps taken by the department before and during the South Stricker Street fire. That month, family members of the fallen firefighters filed a notice with the city of their intent to sue, saying the deaths were preventable.

A Baltimore Sun investigation found that the city’s vacant properties burn at twice the national rate, but gaps in record-keeping limited what firefighters knew before going inside.

James Bethea, a fire lieutenant, died in 2014 when he fell through the floor of an abandoned rowhouse. A fire recruit, Racheal Wilson, died in 2007 during a training exercise when she tried to extinguish a blaze set by instructors in a vacant rowhouse.

“Firefighters are our living superheroes. We don’t expect to lose them,” City Council President Nick Mosby said Thursday. “When they leave their home and say goodbye to their families they know that they might be met with something that might not bring them back.”

Across the state, more people died in fires from January to March than in the same period each year for the past two decades.

Councilman Isaac “Yitzy” Schleifer asked for a moment of silence during the City Council’s Thursday evening meeting “for the individual who lost their life, for the other injured firefighters as well as anybody else who is affected by the fire.”

Reporter Cassidy Jensen contributed to this article.