A FIRE THAT STARTED SHORTLY BEFORE 11 PM last night (Friday) has claimed seven members of a family and left two others with burn injuries in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
AP / Kaczmarek photo
The 3-story home had been divided into three living units with one of the apartments confined to a re-finished basement unit that housed an immigrant family of eleven people. Indications are that the fire started in the basement when a resident tried to refill a kerosene space heater inside and spilled some of the kerosene that ignited. The fire then spread up inside the walls to the top floor where it blossomed.
All of the fatalities were found in the basement apartment that had only one exit. Four of the seven dead were children. There were no smoke detectors anywhere in the house.
The FD was on the scene within 3 minutes and had the fire out in about 30 minutes. But by the time they arrived, six of the victims were already dead. The sevent, an infant, died later at the hospital.
The Philadelphia Inquirer has the STORY.
PhillyFireNews.com has their photo gallery HERE.
WPVI-TV has a video report HERE.
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