Philly fire kills 4
3 kids among dead in house blaze
Four people — including three children — were killed when a fire tore through a Philadelphia rowhouse that didn’t have working smoke detectors Sunday morning, officials and reports said.
Firefighters responded to the blaze about 2 a.m. and found “heavy fire coming from both floors” of the home in the Kensington neighborhood, according to the Philadelphia Fire Department.
“Despite an aggressive interior attack by firefighters, four people did not survive; three of them were children,” fire department spokesperson Kathy Matheson said.
The adult victim had urged a 38-year-old woman to “jump out the window” of the two-story home, possibly saving her
life, ABC 6 reported.
“He told her . . . jump out the window and I’m gonna grab the kids but that was his last words,” neighbor Angel Rivera, who called the man his best friend, told the station. “Life is short, so if you do got kids out there, hug them, treasure them — ‘cause you never know.”
The woman was hospitalized after leaping from the burning building, according to the outlet.
More than 60 firefighters responded to the blaze, which was brought under control within a half-hour, the department said.
The Fire Marshal’s Office is investigating the cause of the fire and the
Medical Examiner’s Office will determine the causes of death.
The department tweeted a photo of firefighters at the scene and said it was “a devastating morning in Kensington.”
“Please keep the community and our members in your thoughts,” the tweet read.
The incident follows a massive January fire in a row home in Philadelphia’s Fairmount neighborhood that killed 13, including seven children.
Fires in the City of Brotherly Love have killed 21 people, injured 38 and displaced 758 since Jan. 1, Fire Commissioner Adam Thiel told reporters Sunday afternoon.
“Folks, Philadelphia has a fire problem and we need your help because fire is everyone’s fight,” Thiel said.