BALTIMORE — Baltimore firefighters are on the scene of a five-alarm fire in downtown Baltimore.
WATCH: Firefighters battle massive 5-alarm fire in downtown Baltimore
Crews are were called to the area of N. Howard Street and W. Fayette Street around 3:05 p.m.
Officials say one building has collapsed, but they don't expect it to spread.
All three of the buildings involved were all vacant, so at this time there are no reported injuries.
The flames quickly became apparent to people working nearby like Tremayne Tillman.
"It's unreal, I mean a couple minutes - one minute we're in the law firm working on business and next thing you know we hear the fire alarms and everything was going off, the firetrucks. And then to come out here and see this building just massively on fire," he said.
He couldn't return to work.
"Just the smell in our office I mean we had to shut down for the rest of the day, not sure if we're gonna be able to open up tomorrow."
Another nearby worker Victor Becillatello told WMAR 2 News that he didn't even notice the fire until his supervisor called him.
"That's when she was like, 'Just go home there's a fire outside, the building is on fire.' And then when I came outside it was like, oh my god. The fire was just intense, you could see the fire department putting up the ladders and once they started spraying the water the smoke was so huge," he said.
Director of the Office of Emergency Management, Joey Henderson said that the crews' main challenge was the condition of the buildings involved.
"These are old buildings, they're vacant, we don't want to put our firefighter personnel in harms way so the incident commander made the decision to fight this fire from the exterior," Henderson told reporters.
The fire impacted some people's afternoon commute.
"The light rail is impacted on Howard st. Mta has shut down the light rail and de-energized the line."
MTA posted on X that several local link and city link buses will detour at Fayette St until 12:30 in the afternoon on Wednesday.
Light rail service will remain suspended Wednesday morning.
A bus bridge will remain in place from Falls Rd to Patapsco light rail stations.
Arson unit and fire investigation are investigating the cause of the fire.
This story will continue to be updated.
