(WASHINGTON TIMES) – A large fire tore through a two-unit house early Wednesday in Philadelphia, killing 13 people, including seven children, and sending two people to hospitals, fire officials said. They warned the numbers could grow as firefighters inspected the rowhome, where officials said 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. They had lived there for a decade, she said, “and some of those kids have lived here as long as us.”
