13 dead, including 7 children, in Philadelphia duplex fire
PHILADELPHIA — Fire tore through a duplex home early Wednesday in Philadelphia, killing 13 people, including seven children, fire officials said. At least two people were sent to hospitals, and officials warned the toll could grow as firefighters searched the rowhome, where 26 people had been staying.
The four smoke alarms in the building, which was public housing, do not appear to have been working, fire officials said. The blaze’s cause was not determined. Officials were shaken by the death toll — apparently the highest in a single fire in the city in at least a century.
“I knew some of those kids,” said Dannie McGuire, 34, fighting back tears as she and Martin Burgert, 35, stood in the doorway of a home around the corner.
Officials did not release the names or ages of those killed in the blaze, which started before 6:30 a.m. As many as eight residents appear to have been able to escape the fire, which burned in the Fairmount neighborhood.
Streets around the fire scene remained blocked off in midafternoon as investigators worked. Onlookers and neighbors had largely migrated to a nearby elementary school, where relatives and friends of the home’s residents gathered to wait for news.
A small group of people, some wrapped in Salvation Army blankets, stared down the street where the blaze happened, hugging one another and crying. Several friends of the children stopped by the school, hoping for information.
Officials held a news conference earlier in the day, near the fire scene.
“I’ve been around for 35 years now and this is probably one of the worst fires I have ever been to,” said Craig Murphy, first deputy fire commissioner.
“Losing so many kids is just devastating,” added Mayor Jim Kenney. “Keep these babies in your prayers.”
Crews responded around 6:40 a.m. and saw flames shooting from the secondfloor front windows in an area believed to be a kitchen, Murphy said. The odd configuration of the building — originally a single-family home that had been split into two apartments — made it difficult to navigate, he said. Crews brought it under control in less than an hour, he said. There were 18 people staying in the upstairs apartment on the second and third floors, and eight staying in the downstairs apartment, which included the first floor and part of the second floor, Murphy said.
A spokesperson for Philadelphia’s Department of Licenses and Inspections said the city does not limit the number of family members who can stay in a single unit. And the mayor said people should withhold judgment.
“You don’t know the circumstances of each and every family, and maybe there were relatives and family that needed to be sheltered,” Kenney said.
The alarms had been inspected annually, and at least two had been replaced in 2020, with batteries replaced in the others at that time, Philadelphia Housing Authority officials said.