Analysis of the Linden Heights Avenue Fire, October 2023

The Fire Safety Research Institute (FSRI), part of UL Research Institutes (ULRI), at the request of the Baltimore City Fire Department (BCFD) has conducted an analysis on the fire that occurred on October 19, 2023 at 5210 Linden Heights Avenue, Baltimore, MD. The analysis was conducted in collaboration with the BCFD’s Serious Incident Review (IR) team. Abstract On October 19, 2023 a fire at 5210 Linden Heights Avenue, Baltimore, MD claimed the lives of two members of the Baltimore City Fire Department (BCFD). At the request of the BCFD, the Fire Safety Research Institute (FSRI), part of UL Research Institutes (ULRI), collaborated with the BCFD’s Serious Incident Review Team to provide an analysis of the incident examining the interaction of fire dynamics, structural firefighting PPE, and firefighting tactics. This analysis is based on data from the incident, materials testing, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling, and documented research results. A CFD model, Fire Dynamics Simulator, was used to develop a simulation of the incident, and additional simulations to examine the impact of ventilation, suppression and fuel load. These simulations were validated by comparing the post fire damage to the row home and the firefighters’ PPE, and previous research results with the thermal results from the simulations. The analysis provided insight on size-up or situational awareness cues, the thermal limitations of structural firefighting PPE, on the "flow and move" fire suppression tactic and the importance of the location of fire attack on a post-flashover structure fire.