BALTIMORE — Wednesday, Baltimore City firefighters launched a new initiative aimed at preventing injuries or deaths inside vacant homes deemed unsafe across the city.
They began posting the signs outside of houses in Southwest Baltimore where we where they’re hoping they send out a clear message.
Engine 14 firefighters went house by house along the 2200 block of Booth Street in Southwest Baltimore, installing red reflective signs on the front and backs of the block’s vacant structures.
Structures just like those are where LT. Kelsey Sadler, LT. Paul Butrim and firefighter Kenny Lacayo, three of BCFDs own, were killed in January when they responded to a vacant house fire on South Stricker Street.
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It’s a purpose for the firefighters that’s personal.
“They love it. They would not be anywhere else or would not want to do anything else in the honor of our fallen firefighters,” said Blair Adams, a BCFD public information officer.
“Well hopefully, the people that don’t need to be in there, won’t go in there,” shared Robin Frisby.
She remembers a tragedy dating back to 2007 when Baltimore firefighter Rachel Wilson died in the line of duty during training.
“You know the fire department does use certain houses for exercises. They’re not all safe for the cadets to be in those houses. You never know somebody can be trapped in one of these houses. They could actually die,” she said.
Preventing injuries or more deaths in vacant houses is the sole purpose of the new signs being posted throughout the city.
“Now with the reflective signs you will easily be able to identify and tell if a vacant home is considered unsafe or not. And that is before entry and we want to make sure we continued our efforts in protecting the community,” Adams said.
With more than 14,000 vacant structures in Baltimore City officials have identified 700 properties considered unsafe so far.
That’s not to say tens or hundreds could make their way onto that list.
“This is an ongoing effort. It’s not something that we will stop once we have what we perhaps presume to be unsafe vacant homes. We’re constantly going to get information in our system from housing about vacant buildings,” Adams shared.
The signs are meant to work in conjunction with the city’s Computer Aid Dispatch System.
“Once we’re on the scene and we see just like everyone else if we are able to easily identify a vacant home and we see a red reflective sign on the home, then we would automatically know that that particular property is unsafe for entry. And then we would battle the fire from the outside only,” Adams explained.
For the next several weeks, firefighters will spend two hours every Wednesday installing the signs in an effort to tag all 700 structures deemed unsafe.
