Six-month-old girl dies in Essex house fire as blaze tears through home
Essex, MD — A six-month-old infant has died following a devastating house fire that broke out Tuesday night in an Essex neighborhood, leaving a family shattered and prompting renewed concern over a recent rise in fatal residential fires across Baltimore County.
Officials have identified the victim as Sophia Rivera-Cortes. Fire crews were dispatched at 6:56 p.m. to the 1000 block of Foxcroft Lane, where they arrived to find flames pouring from both floors of a home and quickly spreading to an adjacent property.
Firefighters entered the structure and discovered the infant deceased inside. An adult woman and two other children managed to escape and were transported to Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. Their conditions have not been released.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation. It is not yet known whether working smoke alarms were present in the home at the time of the incident.
This marks another tragic incident in what officials say has been a troubling increase in deadly residential fires throughout the county over the past two months. Fire investigators are urging residents to take preventative measures and review home fire safety plans.
Baltimore County Fire Department encourages residents to schedule free home fire safety inspections and to check eligibility for free smoke alarm installations.
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Key Points
- Six-month-old Sophia Rivera-Cortes died in a residential fire in Essex on Tuesday night
- Firefighters arrived to find heavy flames; one adult and two children escaped and were hospitalized
- The cause remains under investigation amid a recent rise in fatal fires across Baltimore County