A fire broke out on Wednesday morning at a Philadelphia apartment, killing 13 people and leaving two in critical condition.
Firefighters from the Philadelphia Fire Department arrived at the three-story Fairmount apartment building at approximately 6:40 a.m., where they found “heavy fire” coming from the second floor. PFD wrote on social media it took 50 minutes to get the fire under control.
In a news conference, PFD’s Commissioner Adam Thiel said eight people in the apartment were able to self-evacuate from the building. Two people were hospitalized, with one of them taken to a children’s hospital.
TWO STILL MISSING AFTER ONE RECOVERED FROM COLORADO WILDFIRES
— Philadelphia Fire (@PhillyFireDept) January 5, 2022
Thiel said a total of eight people lived on the first floor of the building, with 18 people living on the second and third floors. He said that number is “a tremendous amount of people to be living in a duplex.”
The commissioner also said the building had six battery-operated smoke detectors that did not go off. He said Philadelphia Housing Authority inspected the building and installed four of the smoke detectors in 2019, installing the last two on the second inspection in 2020.
PHA President and CEO Kelvin Jeremiah said in a statement to the Washington Examiner that the property had two units, which were last inspected in April 2021 and May 2021, and that all the property’s smoke detectors were operating properly during those inspections.
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Thiel said it is too early to know where the fire started.
The Fire Marshal’s Office, along with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives is investigating the fire, with officials noting it is not necessarily considered “suspicious.”
