Baltimore, utility company leaders say work in progress to prevent future underground fires

A Baltimore City Council committee looked to city and utility company leaders on Tuesday for answers on what's being done to prevent future underground fires.

For years, underground fires have plagued the downtown area. In December, a report revealed that crowded wires and gas buildup caused one of the fires on Charles Street in 2024.

While asking questions about prevention, members of the Public Safety Committee also asked why measures weren't taken sooner.

A status update

The Public Safety Committee's meeting was the first since the December release of the report detailing the cause of the September 2024 underground fire on Charles Street between West Mulberry and West Saratoga streets.

A number of businesses suffered extensive damage.

Mark Conway, the committee's chair, said the meeting is about holding the city and the utility companies accountable — to see how they're taking steps to prevent this from happening again.

Conway particularly is interested in hearing from BGE, given the city is in a $120 million multi-year agreement to improve the conduit system.

"We want to make sure that not only do we understand what happened here, but to make sure it never happens again. [Also to make sure] we have an agreement that makes sense," Conway said.

Sterling Sumwalt, the senior manager of BGE's conduit division, said under the agreement the company has installed dozens of manholes and made smaller ones bigger.

"So that gives more room for the fiber optic companies to put their stuff away and make it where we can get in and out of the holes safely," Sumwalt said.

There are some dates this year the city can act by to negotiate the conduit agreement with BGE. The committee asked for clarification on those dates, believing there's a possible deadline in April.

Deputy Mayor for Operations Khalil Zaied, as well as members of the city's transportation department, said they've been following some of the report's recommendations, like improving monitoring.

"We have a robust GIS system of the conduit that we have. We identify all those manholes that have risk, we call them risk manholes," Zaied said.

Councilwoman Phylicia Porter hopes the effort to improve things includes installing A.I. sensors. At the meeting, city officials said they're still identifying a vendor for that.

"If we detect it much earlier, then we're able to encapsulate the fire or public safety issues," she said. "Possibly save lives and commercial corridors as well."

Lingering effects

The underground fires have hit businesses along Charles Street particularly hard.

Eva Hodsdon talked about the pain those business owners are still feeling Tuesday, she was the only person to testify at the meeting.

"These were not minor service interruptions, they were catastrophic events that shut down blocks," she said.

Over the course of the two-hour meeting, the city and utility companies stressed they're making progress as fast as they can.

Hodsdon said, though, there need to be solutions faster.

"How are we supposed to ask large employers, local operators, and first-time entrepreneurs to invest their dreams into Baltimore when we can't guarantee the utilities under their storefront won't literally blow those dreams up," she said.