MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. – Montgomery County fire and rescue responded to a morning four-story apartment building fire. 

Officials received a call around 8:07 a.m. Saturday morning, for the report of a building fire. Upon arrival, officials located a heavy fire to the rear of a four-story apartment building with an extension to neighboring buildings. 

Fire and rescue assisted with evacuating residents from the inside of the building. 

According to officials, 24 apartments were displaced due to the damage.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

The clock is ticking on a 2025 deadline for a cleaner Chesapeake Bay, and while some regional spots have not fully met their goals, an EPA official said “overall, things are moving in the right direction.”

Every two years, the Chesapeake Bay Program — a partnership between Maryland, Virginia, the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York and West Virginia — issues a “milestone report” to document progress on its bay cleanup goals.

According to the latest report, there’s “incremental progress” across the entire Chesapeake Bay watershed.

But Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator Adam Ortiz told WTOP there are some standout signs of progress: “The University of Maryland put out a report a month ago, and our report confirms that Pennsylvania farmers have been stepping up. And the water has been getting cleaner in that upstream area.”

Ortiz was referring to the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and Watershed Report Card released in July. That report card gave the bay a C+, the highest grade since 2002.

Progress by Pennsylvania is important, said Ortiz, because, “that means that the downstream area’s cleaner.”

“We’re seeing improvements in the Chesapeake Bay,” he said, adding that the impact oysters, mussels and the bay grasses have been critical to the health of the bay.

Ortiz said in the past, there was a “blame game” among jurisdictions, and that Pennsylvania had been singled out.

Pennsylvania has invested more than $200 million toward reducing pollution into the bay, he said. The state has also passed a bill that sets standards on the use of fertilizer, which contributes to creating algal blooms that can generate “dead zones” in the bay.

Virginia and Maryland have made progress, said Ortiz, adding that, “In Virginia, they have fully funded their farm conservation programs, Maryland has had a very robust program for a long time.”

“I also don’t want to be Pollyannaish about it. We still have some work to do,” he said. “The toughest area is the area where most of us live. So, these are the urban and suburban areas.”

“Everybody can do something. Native plants help on our lawns, reducing or eliminating our use of fertilizers, and trying to control stormwater coming from our gutters or our driveways can also help in these more suburban areas here in the DMV,” Ortiz added.

When asked about favorite areas and where he’s personally noted progress, Ortiz mentioned Terrapin Run Nature Park on Kent Island and the Anacostia River: “I’m a big fan of all the improvements on the Anacostia River. Kingman Island is a real success story.”

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Newly released body camera footage captured the arrest of the illegal migrant accused of killing Maryland mom Rachel Morin.

In footage released by the Tulsa Police Department and obtained by FOX 5, officers encounter Victor Martinez Hernandez at a bar in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 

His arrest came 10 months into an intense nationwide manhunt.

The mother of five, whose children range in age from 8 to 18, was raped before being murdered in August while jogging on the Ma & Pa Trail in Harford County, Maryland.

In the footage, officers arrive at a bar where Martinez Hernandez was sitting.

After the initial encounter, he complied when taken outside the bar, and police began asking him for his identification.

Martinez Hernandez told the officers he didn’t have an ID and provided a fake name.

“You live in El Salvador?” one officer is heard asking.

The migrant’s identity was revealed, and officers snapped pictures to circulate the long-awaited capture of Morin’s suspected killer.

In a press conference, Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler said Victor Martinez Hernandez was arrested in Tulsa and booked.

“Five hours after meeting with [Morin’s] family and just before midnight our time, police in Tulsa, Oklahoma, assisted by our federal partners, located and arrested Rachel’s murderer: Victor Antonio Martinez Hernandez,” Gahler said.

He was charged with first-degree murder and first-degree rape.

The 23-year-old migrant illegally crossed into the United States in February 2023, police announced.

“We all suspected that Rachel was not his first victim,” Gahler said. “It is my understanding that this suspect, this monster, fled to the United States illegally after committing the brutal murder of a young woman in El Salvador a month earlier, in January of 2023.”

Gahler said the first DNA match for Martinez Hernandez was from a Los Angeles attack in March 2023.

“Once in our country, and likely emboldened by his anonymity, he brutally attacked a 9-year-old girl and her mother during a home invasion in March of 2023 in Los Angeles,” Gahler said. “And as everyone I believe is aware, that was our first DNA match linking Rachel’s case to the one in Los Angeles.”

The sheriff turned his attention to the crisis at the Southern border, directing his remarks to the White House and to “both members of Congress.”

“We are 1,800 miles of the southern border,” Gahler said. “And American citizens are not safe because of their failed immigration policies.”

“This is the second time in two years that an innocent Harford County woman has lost her life to a criminal in our country illegally,” he said. “In both cases, they are suspects from El Salvador with ties to criminal gangs. This should not be happening.

“Victor Hernandez did not come to this country to make a better life for him or his family. He came here to escape the crimes he committed in El Salvador. He came here to murder Rachel and, God willing, no one else. But that should have never been allowed to happen.”

Rachel Morin murder

Morin, 37, was reported missing in August 2023 by her boyfriend, who said she never returned after going out for a run on the Ma & Pa Trail, a pedestrian trail in Bel Air, a quiet and typically safe town about 28 miles northeast of Baltimore, Aug. 5, 2023.

Her body was found on a trail the next day.

In February, police released new sketches of Martinez Hernandez.

The sketches came after DNA evidence linked Martinez Hernandez to the location of a Los Angeles home invasion.

Police used the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), which led them to a single DNA match for an unidentified Hispanic male.

The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) collected a hat left behind at the site of the March 2023 home invasion that turned violent, leaving multiple people, including minor children, injured. 

The suspect allegedly broke into the home in the middle of the night and assaulted the family inside before he was chased out. Surveillance video footage captured the man leaving, shirtless, through the front door.

“I’m going to make this short because I’m very emotional,” Rachel’s mother, Patricia Morin, said. “I just want to take this time to thank all the law enforcement for all their hard work.

“They just really cared for our family and for our daughter,” she said. “They were going to diligently work and find the person who murdered her.”