Baltimore Fire details new procedures in battling fires following deaths of two firefighters

BALTIMORE -- WJZ has learned that the Baltimore Fire Department is making adjustments to how it fights fires.

The adjusted procedures were sent out in a memo to staff on Tuesday.

For the second week in a row, firefighters gathered outside the Duda-Ruck Funeral Home in Dundalk to pay respects to one of their fallen brothers.

"Our members, they're hurt," Baltimore City Fire Chief James Wallace said.

Dillon Rinaldo, who was posthumously promoted to captain, will be laid to rest this week.

He was a six-year veteran of the department.

Rinaldo and EMT/Firefighter Rodney W. Pitts lll, whose funeral was last week, were both killed battling a fire last month on Linden Heights Avenue.

"We're not made of steel," Chief Wallace said. "We're not. We are human beings. These things affect us in ways that the average person just doesn't know."

The devastating losses are causing the department to make adjustments to how it fights fires.

WJZ obtained a copy of an internal memo sent out to staff Tuesday.

It says effective immediately firefighters must fight fires from outside the building unless they're told to do otherwise by a battalion chief.

Firefighters will now only attack fires from the inside of occupied dwellings after they have completed several checks of the building.

And, all fires at confirmed vacant buildings can only be extinguished from the outside unless there is an actual sighting of a person trapped inside.

Chief Wallace said some parts of the memo are new while others a just a reminder.

"When we respond to calls, we want them to evaluate the environments that they respond to and we want them to use critical thinking," Chief Wallace said.

Several investigations into the cause of the fire and what led up to it are still ongoing, but while they continue, city leaders want people to remember how dangerous a firefighter's job is.

"This is why it is so important to do things that we ask consistently for folks to do," Mayor Brandon Scott said. "Have a smoke detector, for folks to have their houses looked at for safety and make sure that you're properly storing things. Everything that you can do to prevent something from happening."

Viewings for Cpt. Rinaldo will continue Thursday at the Duda-Ruck Funeral Home from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

His funeral is set for Friday at 10 a.m. at Cathedral of Mary Our Queen on North Charles Street in Baltimore.