'I pinned his badge on him in August,' Baltimore Fire Chief Says of Fallen FF

City officials identified the Baltimore firefighter who lost his life Thursday while battling a fire that ripped through a group of rowhouses in Northwest Baltimore, the latest blow to a department that is still reeling from the death of three others last year.

Fire officials on Friday said Rodney Pitts III, 31, of Baltimore, died from his injuries after he and other firefighters entered a burning rowhouse around 3:45 p.m. at the 5200 block of Linden Heights Avenue. Four firefighters were hospitalized with burn wounds Thursday, and two have since been released.

Pitts had been in active service as a firefighter and EMT since August after joining the department last year. He was stationed in Park Heights on Engine 29.

“I pinned his badge on him in August,” said Baltimore Fire Chief James Wallace.

A person who answered the door at a house listed for Pitts declined to comment Friday.

A Baltimore native, Pitts was eager to serve his hometown, something his family reflected during a visit with Mayor Brandon Scott Thursday evening.

”That’s what I think we should be talking about. Someone who loved this place so much that they would be willing to risk their life, and, in his case, tragically give his life for this city,” Scott said.

Lt. Dillon Rinaldo, a six-year veteran, remains in critical but stable condition Friday. Firefighter Seth Robbins, a 17-year veteran, is also hospitalized. Keith Brooks II, a 14-year veteran, and firefighter Tavon Marshall, a 3-year veteran, were treated and released.

The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is leading the investigation into the cause of the fire.

Baltimore Police’s arson and homicide units are investigating, and one person was taken into custody after the fire. That person, upon being interviewed, has since been released and police are asking anyone with information about the fire to call detectives. The ATF is leading the investigation, but no city leader would say whether arson is suspected.

Pitts’ death comes less than two years after three firefighters were killed and a fourth seriously injured in a vacant rowhouse fire on South Stricker Street in New Southwest/ Mount Clare, a neighborhood in Central Southwest Baltimore. That fire was one of the deadliest for fire responders in the city’s history.

Thursday’s roaring fire on Linden Heights Avenue consumed four rowhouses. One house is a rental, two are vacant properties, and one was occupied by an owner, according to city housing data. Wallace said Friday he didn’t know how the fire started or in which house.

Pitts was inside an occupied house sandwiched between two vacant properties when firefighters were overwhelmed by the blaze’s intensity. Three of the injured firefighters were helping with rescue efforts.

The homeowner, who escaped her house after smoke poured into her kitchen, declined to comment Friday. Her brother, Randolph Parker, said the family has worried for years that a fire would break out at vacant rowhouses on the block, where some homeless people take shelter.

Wallace said intense flames “started to grow very rapidly,” once firefighters entered a rowhouse to spray water on flames. Preliminary information shows the situation for firefighters on the ground “evolved very rapidly,” he said.

There is no evidence at this time of a collapse being the cause of anyone’s injuries Wallace said, however, he cautioned that the investigation is in its nascent stages and to give any other information would be speculation.

Members of the Baltimore Fire Department lined up and saluted Thursday as an ambulance carrying the body of their colleague crawled down Lombard Street. Other members flanked the ambulance and walked in a long, quiet procession.

The department has emphasized training members in rescue operations since the South Stricker Street fire, and recently budgeted to add four more safety officers to its ranks. The exact fire conditions at the two-story brick rowhouses Thursday were not immediately clear.

“What I can tell you is we attacked this fire like we attack many fires,” Wallace said. “We had a rapid intervention team in place. We had crews in the front. We had crews in the rear. I’m told some of the initial indicators were that this fire just started to grow very rapidly. They don’t know why.”

The deaths of Kelsey Sadler, Kenny Lacayo and Paul Butrim in 2022 devastated the city and spurred changes to Baltimore’s fire operations, including when firefighters should enter abandoned buildings that are at risk of collapsing.

It also refocused attention on Baltimore’s chronic problem with vacant or abandoned properties that pockmark the city, and in some cases sprawl entire blocks. Since the 2022 fatal fire, Baltimore brought its vacant housing stock to the lowest level it has seen in years.

Thursday’s tragedy comes two weeks after the City Council approved Wallace to lead the grieving agency. Former Chief Niles Ford resigned in December after a line-of-duty death report by officials from Baltimore and other jurisdictions publicized organizational and procedural missteps taken by the department before and during the South Stricker Street fire. That month, family members of the fallen firefighters filed a notice with the city of their intent to sue, saying the deaths were preventable.

A Baltimore Sun investigation found the city’s vacant properties burn at twice the national rate, but gaps in record-keeping limited what firefighters knew before going inside.

James Bethea, a fire lieutenant, died in 2014 when he fell through the floor of an abandoned rowhouse. A fire recruit, Racheal Wilson, died in 2007 during a training exercise when she tried to extinguish a blaze set by instructors in a vacant rowhouse.

“Firefighters are our living superheroes. We don’t expect to lose them,” City Council President Nick Mosby said. “When they leave their home and say goodbye to their families they know that they might be met with something that might not bring them back.”

Across the state, more people died in fires from January to March than in the same period each year for the past two decades.

Councilman Isaac “Yitzy” Schleifer asked for a moment of silence during the City Council’s Thursday evening meeting “for the individual who lost their life, for the other injured firefighters as well as anybody else who is affected by the fire.”

The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also responded to the scene to assist the Baltimore City Fire Department.

Reporter Cassidy Jensen contributed to this article.