Mount Vernon fire, the morning after
Above: Firefighters were still hosing down the roof of 800 No. Charles Street this morning.
Qayum Karzai watching firefighters working on roof near his restaurant, Helmand. (Photo by Fern Shen)
Qayum Karzai looked up at firefighters blasting water on the roof of the smoldering buildings two doors from his Mount Vernon restaurant and said the same thing pretty much every passerby was saying:
“Unbelievable,” he said, shaking his head. “Right after The Block!”
Silhouetted against a bright blue sky, Baltimore City firefighters were working to put out the last of a blaze that broke out at about 1:30 a.m., coming on the heels of another five alarm-fire in the city hours earlier — a roaring Monday afternoon fire that damaged buildings in Baltimore’s red light district, The Block.
Karzai, owner of the restaurant Helmand, said he got a call at about 4 am saying that the buildings just south of his business on Charles St. were on fire.
Baltimore city firefighters were still working to put out the fire at 800 N. Charles St., hours after it began. (Photo by Fern Shen)
He said Helmand probably did not have any fire damage, but “may well have water damage” and that he would try to open today if possible. “The important thing is, there were no people hurt,” he said.
Karzai still hadn’t seen a rug store, Handmade Global Imports, that he owns on the other side of Donna’s, on Madison St., but predicted that its condition “will not be good.”
The building that houses Donna’s Coffee Bar, on the corner of Madison and Charles, and the adjacent building, where the restaurants Indigma and My Thai are located, bore the brunt of the blaze.