Update: Fire crews have the massive blaze in Woodberry contained Friday morning and some roads have been reopened.
Tall stacks of lumber collected from around the city acted as fuel for a wind-driven fire unlike any the Baltimore fire chief had ever seen Thursday night in the city’s Woodberry neighborhood.
The large fire was centered at Camp Small, where the city recycles felled trees into lumber products, near where southbound Interstate 83 exits onto West Cold Spring Lane.
Traffic on I-83 was shut down in both directions from the Northern Parkway exit to Druid Park Lake Drive on Thursday night as at least 100 firefighters and others responded to the emergency. Cold Spring Lane also remained closed and service on nearby light rail tracks was suspended.
Speaking just after 11 p.m., Mayor Brandon Scott said there were no evacuation orders anticipated, though officials would continue to monitor the situation. He said commuters should expect heavy traffic on Friday morning as crews continued to fight the fire. “83 is closed in the city, period,” he stressed.
Fire Chief James W. Wallace said the fire was not under control as of 11:15 p.m., but that crews were making progress.
“We’ve gained an upper hand on this,” Wallace said from a roadway briefing area, with bright orange flames visible in the background.
Wallace said the Fire Department had two dedicated strike teams prepared to respond to any spot fires that were started by embers or fire brands as strong winds continued overnight.
The chief called the blaze “challenging” and “dynamic,” and said he’d never seen a fire of this scope. Crews would be working overnight to contain and put out the fire, which could be seen from miles away on a clear winter night.
“The challenges here are obviously the weather and safety,” Wallace said. “We’re trying to keep this under control in nighttime hours, so we have a lot of added risk as we try to engage this. But no, I’ve not encountered this type of fire at this size before.”
Another complicating factor was the size of the lumber and log stacks, Wallace said. In some parts of Camp Small, the wood was stacked 30 feet high. The fire is deep into piles that could collapse, he said.
That’s especially problematic because Camp Small only has one tiny road in and out of it, meaning a collapsed, burning pile could trap fire crews in, or outside of, the area.
Wallace said the Fire Department has heavy vehicles waiting to get into the camp and dig a ring around the fire to better contain it, when it is safe for crews to do so.
No injuries had been reported as of 11:15 p.m., officials said. Emergency responders from Anne Arundel, Harford and Baltimore counties and staff from the Maryland Department of Emergency Management were all on scene assisting Thursday night, Scott and Wallace said.
Fire officials said the blaze was reported as a brush fire on 1900 Brand Ave., though officials are not sure what sparked it initially. The fire was first called in around 5:13 p.m. by a city employee, Marsh said.
“When they got here, they discovered a rapidly evolving fire that was in a large pile of trees and logs,” Wallace said. “This has been a challenge because it’s been a wind-driven fire. It’s been very difficult for us to get out ahead of it.”
The Baltimore light rail track runs between Camp Small and I-83, the Jones Falls Expressway.
Wallace said the light rail tracks had not been compromised, but that the fire was near them.
A video shared with The Banner, taken from The Woodberry apartment complex at 2001 W. Cold Spring Lane, shows tall flames and smoke pouring into the sky as fire trucks respond on the ground and at least one helicopter is visible in the sky above the blaze.
A few residents went to see the fire close up. One said he could feel the heat from the fire just standing in the highway.
“We were driving home when we saw smoke and, as we got further, we saw there’s this huge, gigantic fire,” another resident said. “We came to see what’s going on.”
The Maryland Transit Administration suspended light rail service between Falls Road and North Avenue as a precaution. Shuttle bus service is available between these stations, the agency said.
Camp Small is not in a heavily residential area. It is just north of the Fleischmann’s Vinegar location and southeast of the Cylburn Arboretum. It is across the highway and the Jones Falls Expressway from Baltimore Polytechnic Institute and Western High School. Those schools will be closed Friday, according to the school system.
What is Camp Small?
Largely out of sight, Camp Small has for decades been the city’s dumping ground for waste wood collected from downed street trees.
Its roughly 5 acres of kindling are vulnerable to a fire. Logs are stacked 30 feet high and line the length of a narrow driveway that is the only access to a small workshop. Large piles of wood chips and cut firewood also cover portions of the plot.
Camp Small is more than a scrapyard, however. In 2016, the site became part of Baltimore’s zero-waste initiative. A small crew began repurposing scrap wood, usually oak and ash, into usable products including wood chips, firewood and eventually lumber.
The operation has been nationally recognized for its sustainability efforts. Products from Camp Small can be found across the city. Mulch from the site softens the ground under city playgrounds and benches adorn city parks. Lumber milled at the site decorates the walls at the city’s Cahill Recreation Center. Camp Small also supplies products to a number of Baltimore artisans and furniture makers, including Sandtown Millworks.
The fire and high winds also prompted officials to cancel the fireworks show at the city’s annual monument lighting.
“We have three particularly bad fires going on in Baltimore City right now that are being spread by the high winds,” Baltimore Comptroller Bill Henry told the crowd at the celebration in Mount Vernon. “And because those fires require a lot of attention, we are not going to be able to set off the fireworks here tonight.”
Wallace said there had also been a fire in the 600 block of West Lexington Street, and that he believed crews had responded to a third blaze.
Banner reporters Emily Opilo and Justin Fenton contributed to this report.
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