7kids&6 others die in Philly fire

At least 13 people — including seven children — were killed Wednesday when a fire tore through a city-owned row home in Philadelphia and the smoke detectors failed to go off.

Firefighters responded at about 6:30 a.m. to the building on North 23rd Street in the Fairmount neighborhood, where they found heavy flames coming from the second floor of the three-story building, officials said at a press conference.

The Fire Department was able to rush two survivors to medical care, one to a children’s hospital and another to Temple University’s hospital.

“This is without a doubt one of the most tragic days in our city’s history,” Mayor Jim Kenney, the son of a firefighter, said at the press conference. “Please keep all these folks, and especially these children, in your prayers. Losing so many kids is just devastating.”

The building has been owned by the city Housing Authority since 1967, according to deed records cited by the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The Housing Authority conducted an inspection of the home and installed four smoke detectors in 2019. It installed another two during a 2020 inspection, officials said.

The detectors were not hardwired and instead were battery operated. Officials said the batteries were meant to last 10 years and did not give specifics on why the devices failed to work or why there was no inspection in 2021. Kenney promised the city would investigate.

Deputy Fire Commissioner Craig Murphy said at the press conference that he believes that eight people lived in the first-floor apartment of the two-unit building and that 18 lived throughout the secondand third-floor apartment. He caled it a “tremendous amount of people” to be living in the small row home.

Officials said it was too soon to know how the fire began.