PHILADELPHIA (AP) – 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, but officials shaken by the death toll – apparently the highest in a single fire in the city in at least a century – vowed to get to the bottom of it.
“I knew some of those kids – I used to see them playing on the corner,” said Dannie McGuire, 34, fighting back tears as she and Martin Burgert, 35, stood in the doorway of a home around the corner.
“I can’t picture how more people couldn’t get out – jumping out a window,” she said.
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 a residential area of the Fairmount neighborhood, northwest of downtown and home to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and its famous “Rocky steps.”