Kitchen Fire Destroys Apartment, Causes Smoke Damage to Building

Vacinia Zieglar had begun to bake in her second-floor Chesapeake Glen apartment Tuesday evening when she returned to the kitchen after a few minutes and saw flames coming from the oven.

"I opened the oven and saw that the baked goods I was making were on fire. I put it in the sink and threw water on it [hoping] that I could avoid this," she said, motioning toward the remains of a two-alarm fire in her apartment. "But the smoke was overwelming."

Zieglar, who just moved into the apartment on Saturday, said she opened her sliding-glass door to try to let some of the smoke out but when she turned back to her kitchen it was completely filled with black smoke.

After grabbing her dog, she said, "I just got out of there."

Zieglar said firefighters had not yet informed her of the extent of the damage, but was told that representatives from the American Red Cross would help find her somewhere to stay. She said she had no place nearby where she could stay.

Neighbors said the smoke coming from the building was so thick and dark they could barely see the three-level garden apartments—a woman on the third floor had to be rescued from her balcony because the smoke was down to her knees, said Capt. James Rostek, an Anne Arundel County Fire Department spokesman.

"She was taken to Baltimore Washington Medical Center and is being treated for minor smoke inhalation," he said.

According to Rostek, a call came in at about 6:15 p.m. for a reported apartment fire in the 8000 block of Green Orchard Road at Chesapeake Glen, formerly known as the Greentree Apartments. Once on the scene, firefighters requested a second alarm and it took about 20 minutes for firefighters get the fire under control. The fire only involved Zieglar's apartment.

As of 7:45 p.m, it was not clear how many residents would be displaced due to the fire.

This article will be updated as we get more information.