A pink and purple child’s tricycle, a bag of charred clothes and a burned Bible sat in a pile of burnt debris Sunday in front of a Woodlawn apartment building where a fire engulfed several residences.
No one was injured in Saturday’s three-alarm fire, which displaced five adults and five children, and left several others out of their homes for most of the weekend.
The fire started shortly before 7 p.m. in a bedroom on the second floor of a building in the Tuscany Woods Apartments complex near Security Square Mall, Baltimore County fire officials said.
The fire quickly spread to the third floor and the roof. Firefighters stopped the fire from spreading farther, confining it mostly to the building of origin, fire officials said.
Firefighters contained the blaze in about 90 minutes, but its cause remained unknown Sunday, fire officials said.
Baltimore County’s Office of Emergency Management and the Red Cross were at the complex Saturday to help the 10 displaced residents find a place to stay.
By Sunday morning, two buildings were closed off, and contractors were working in the rain to repair the roof. Heaps of charred and soaked debris sat in the front and back of the buildings. The smell of smoke still hung in the air despite the rain.
Residents in the building next to the one where the fire started were put up in a nearby hotel and weren’t allowed to return to their homes Sunday.
Waldemar Nieves, 29, stood in the rain Sunday in front his building, which was locked and off limits but not burned.
“I wasn’t home, but my neighbor called me and told me my apartment building was on fire,” Nieves said.
“I rushed over here, and you could see the flames coming through the roof.”
He said the apartment management put him in a nearby hotel room, but he was left without clothes or a charger for his cell phone.
A young mother who lived in the same building was turned back by a security guard, as she had returned to her apartment to gather clothes for her child.
A receptionist at the leasing office said no one was available Sunday to comment on the fire.
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