Family of rescuers mourns loss of matriarch in blaze

BALTIMORE (Map, News) - The stunned family of an elderly Baltimore County woman is mourning the loss of its matriarch, who died after being pulled out of a house fire by her firefighter grandson this week.

“Our entire family is involved with the fire department in some way,” said Cynthia Bury, an emergency medical technician with the Baltimore County Fire Department and the deceased woman’s daughter-in-law.

“We know how to help other people in fire trauma situations, but we’re at a loss to how we can help ourselves right now.”

As flames ravaged their house in the 2700 block of Alderwood Avenue near Lansdowne around 1 a.m. Tuesday, Bury and her 11-year-old son escaped through a window and called for help. But 70-year-old Myrtle Bury was trapped upstairs.

Cynthia Bury’s older son, a firefighter with the English Consul Volunteer Company, “was the first person to arrive on the scene,” she said.

He braved the intense heat and billowing smoke to rescue his grandmother.

Myrtle Bury, who was in cardiac arrest, was resuscitated and taken to St. Agnes Hospital. She was transferred to the hyperbaric chamber at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where she died the same day, according to Elise Armacost, a Baltimore County Fire Department spokeswoman.

The fire, which had quickly engulfed the two-story wooden frame, was reportedly caused by an electrical shortage and rendered the house uninhabitable.

Cynthia Bury and her husband, Robert, an EMT with the Baltimore County Fire Department, sat outside a next-door neighbor’s house the following afternoon with their firefighter son, who declined to give his name. All were visibly upset.

Still, Robert Bury managed to think of others — expressing his gratitude for the response time and tremendous effort demonstrated during the blaze. Crews from the Arbutus Volunteer Fire Co. and Halethorpe Station braved the flames alongside Baltimore County fire departments.

“No one could have given more than [the firefighters] did,” he said. “This was a textbook operation; they responded in a matter of minutes. I am extremely thankful for their effort. They did everything possible.”

In addition to crews from the English Consul Volunteer Company, the Arbutus Volunteer Fire Co., and Halethorpe Station, companies from Baltimore City and Howard and Anne Arundel counties responded.

Colleagues of the Burys expressed sympathy for their own.

“Cindy is currently on bereavement relief,” said Capt. Ed Sipes from Halethorpe fire station said Wednesday. “She has our support.”

Rabbit figurines and white wooden beams remain after the blaze was extinguished. While the loss of a family member and personal possessions lingers in their minds, the Bury family intends to remain in the community.

“We’re going to rebuild,” Cynthia Bury said. “We’d lived in our house for 17 years and we aren’t going anywhere.”