1/5/2022- 10:23 p.m.
PHILADELPHIA — At least 12 people, including eight children, were killed Wednesday when a fire tore through a crowded Philadelphia rowhouse, officials said, in what the mayor called “one of the most tragic days in our city’s history.”
Eight people escaped the fire in the city’s Fairmount district, and first responders took an adult and a child to hospitals, First Deputy Fire Commissioner Craig Murphy told reporters. A fire department spokesperson late Wednesday revised the number of dead, which had been put at 13, including seven children.
“Please keep all of these folks, and especially these children, in our prayers,” Mayor Jim Kenney (D) said at an emotional news conference. “Losing so many kids is devastating.”
Philadelphia rowhouse fire leaves at least 12 dead
A fire killed at least 12 people, including families and children, in Philadelphia on Jan. 5.
Firefighters said they arrived at the three-story, 2,300-square-foot rowhouse, operated by the Philadelphia Housing Authority, in the 800 block of North 23rd Street about 6:40 a.m. and saw flames shooting up from the second floor.
In a news release Wednesday night that revised the number of dead, the city said firefighters removed “one child from the building, but the child did not survive.”
Witnesses told local media that they were awakened by screams coming from the building.
Jacuita Purifoy, 37, has two younger sisters and six nieces and nephews who lived in the building. She said she had not been given the list of the deceased and was not sure whether any survived. Their ages range from 1 to the mid-30s.
“Everybody is still in shock,” Purifoy said.
Loved ones, many warmed by blankets, formed a prayer circle nearby. Vanessa Price, 46, said she was a cousin of a family that lived in the building.
“That’s our brothers, sisters, daughters,” she said of the fire victims. “We just got to keep them in prayer.”
