MD Surge In Fire Deaths Cause For Alarm: State Fire Marshal

MARYLAND — Unless residents and fire departments take some important safety steps, more Marylanders will die in fires this year than in decades, the state's fire marshal warned.

About 40 residents have died in fires in the first three months of 2023, said Brian S. Geraci, Maryland state fire marshal. By comparison, the state had a total of 51 deaths in 2020, the lowest number of fire deaths on record.

"This deeply saddens and concerns me to my core," Geraci said in an open letter to Maryland residents on Thursday. "We need to slow this trend down immediately."

Fires now burn faster and hotter and produce toxic smoke that can kill quickly, he said.

"You have the least amount of time to escape a fire in your home than at any other time in history," Geraci said.

The leading cause of fires in Maryland are cooking, electrical, smoking materials, and heating appliances. And many residents still don't have working smoke alarms.

Leaving doors open during a fire can cause fatalities, especially in apartment buildings, Geraci told WTOP. Melanie Diaz, 25, died in February in a Silver Spring apartment fire where the doors were left open, smoke and fire spread to the hallways and stairwells and Diaz died, he said.

Two people who went back into burning homes died this year. Geraci told WTOP that should never happen. Once you are out of a structure on fire, stay out.

Geraci also has a message for the state's fire chiefs. “We’ve got to get back into communities, we got to get back knocking on doors, you gotta start checking smoke alarms, and making sure people have working smoke alarms in their home.”

Those who die in fires fail to recognize the causes of fires and take steps to prevent them from happening, he said.

To survive house fires, Geraci said Marylanders should:

• Have working smoke alarms on every level of your home, outside each sleeping area and inside each bedroom. Battery-only alarms must be a ten-year sealed battery alarm. Call the local fire department or the State Fire Marshal’s Office if you need smoke alarms. They are free, and we will even install them for you.
• At night, make sure all bedroom doors are closed, and be sure to close all doors behind you when you are escaping a fire. This will prevent the spread of smoke and fire throughout your home and give you time to be rescued if trapped by a fire.
• Meet with your family and develop an escape plan, have two ways out of every room. Make sure door locks can be opened without using a key, and that bedroom windows are operational from the inside. Have a meeting place outside the home so your family can ensure everyone got out.
• Get out and Stay Out Always! Once out, never ever go back inside a burning building! You will not come back out alive.
• Once out, make that 911 call immediately to the fire department to get them started as soon as possible.