9 Children Among At Least 12 Dead Following Fire At Philadelphia Housing Authority Apartments In Fairmount

By Web staff

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    PHILADELPHIA (KYW) — Nine children are among the 12 people killed following a fire at two apartment units owned by the Philadelphia Housing Authority in the city’s Fairmount neighborhood Wednesday morning. The Philadelphia Fire Department arrived to heavy flames at the building on the 800 block of North 23rd Street just after 6:30 a.m.

Authorities confirmed to CBS3’s Joe Holden that three adults and nine juveniles were killed in the tragic fire. The ages of the victims range from two to 33 years old.

“It was terrible, most of, I’ve been around for 30, 35 years now and this is probably one of the worst fires I’ve ever been to,” Philadelphia Deputy Fire Commissioner Craig Murphy said during a press conference.

Murphy says the number of victims is “dynamic because there is still an ongoing recovery effort.”

Eight people evacuated the building and two additional people were transported to CHOP and Temple University Hospital.

Crews got the fire under control by 7:31 a.m.

Murphy says the building was divided into two apartments. The first-floor unit reportedly had eight occupants and the second and third-floor unit had 18 people living in it.

The home is owned by the Philadelphia Housing Authority. According to the PHA, there are seven smoke detectors and three carbon monoxide detectors in Unit A and six smoke detectors and three carbon monoxide detectors in Unit B. This makes a total of 13 smoke and six carbon monoxide detectors in the building that did not operate.

Dinesh Indala, a senior executive and vice president of operations for PHA, says inspections are done annually.

“Most recent inspection on B unit was May 5, 2021, and at that time, we had six smoke detectors and three carbon monoxide detectors working,” Indala said. “We had to replace two batteries in two smoke detectors, all replaced. On a previous inspection, 9/28/2019, we also had to replace smoke detectors again in the same unit. On A unit, the latest inspection on 4/23 and two smoke detectors were installed and there were seven smoke detectors and three carbon monoxide detectors present and they were signed by the tenant as a part of the smoke detector response form.”

Indala says PHA was not aware that 26 people were living inside the unit.

“No, we were not,” Indala said. “We are cooperating with fire department and everyone else in the investigation right now. It’s L&I stuff. All the family hasn’t been notified yet so we don’t want to comment on who and what. The count for the number of people on that property is too high.”

The PHA does inspections annually and the last was in May 2021. Indala adds that it’s the holidays and it’s unclear if “they have people coming and visiting.”

Murphy says the fire is not considered suspicious at this time, but the Philadelphia Fire Department’s Fire Marshals Office is leading the investigation because of the loss of life.

“We are working with the Fire Marshals Office, we plan and intend on getting a cause for the fire, making sure this tremendous loss of life didn’t happen in vain,” Murphy said.

ATF agents are also responding to the scene to assist.

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