Fire investigators are still looking into the cause of a fire that left an Aberdeen apartment building uninhabitable, displacing more than a dozen people on the morning of Christmas Eve.
Aberdeen police on patrol in the area of 15 S. Rogers St. noticed the fire about 5 a.m. Sunday and immediately began helping residents escape the fire. Two Aberdeen officers were transported to the hospital for smoke inhalation, according to Rich Gardiner, spokesman for the Harford County Volunteer Fire and EMS Association.
Aberdeen police rescued a baby from the first floor of the building, while firefighters rescued a woman trapped on the second floor.
Gardiner said a woman who lived on the third floor tried to use a rope ladder to escape the blaze.
“The ladder did not fully deploy and she became tangled in it,” Gardiner said. The woman, who was carrying a child, was dangling upside down from the ladder when a neighbor helped her and the child to safety.
“The fire originated in the first-floor hallway near a set of stairs,” said Deputy Maryland State Fire Marshal Joseph Zurolo, but the cause has not been determined yet.
Zurolo said the three-floorstructure, which land records indicate was built in 1890, was a house that had been divided into six apartment units. Because of the construction methods used, there are open spaces in the walls of the building, which enabled the fire to spread quickly.
Zurolo estimated the damage at $350,000.
The American Red Cross is assisting displaced residents, he said.
