Relatives and friends said the victims included two mothers and their children, some who attended a nearby elementary school and one possibly as young as 2.
Investigators couldn’t say what sparked the 6:30 a.m. blaze or why it became so deadly so swiftly. Federal agents were expected to join Philadelphia fire marshals in what is likely to be a complex and lengthy probe.. That’s been revised to 12, with at least two people hospitalized.
Philadelphia Police Cpl. Jasmine Reilly said an initial 911 call was answered just after 6:30 a.m. Fire crews arrived on the scene within five minutes. They found flames shooting out the windows of the second floor and the “heavy fire” had already run up an open stairwell into the third, said Craig Murphy, first deputy commissioner of the Philadelphia Fire Department.
With a dozen dead, the blaze ranks among the deadliest house fires in the last 40 years, according to the National Fire Protection Association, a trade group that identified just five other fires that have taken more lives since 1980. It also becomes one of the deadliest disasters in city history — worse than a 2008 house fire that claimed the lives of seven in Southwest Philadelphia, and more deadly than the 2013 Salvation Army building collapse that killed six people.
During one of those inspections, batteries for two of the six smoke detectors were replaced, said Dinesh Indala, executive vice president of housing operations for PHA. “These buildings are very old,” he said. “I have no idea how I’d get out. I’d have to go out the window.”