It was among the deadliest residential fires in the country in recent years. The mayor called it “one of the most tragic days in our city’s history.”
Neighbors, awakened by screams, looked out their windows at the cold dark morning. Flames were pouring out of the second-story windows of a rowhouse on 23rd Street as people on the block watched in horror. Firefighters arrived just before sunrise and fought the blaze for nearly an hour. They discovered what neighbors had feared: There had been people inside, a lot of them. Thirteen were killed in the fire, said Craig Murphy, the deputy fire commissioner, though he grimly cautioned that the death toll was “dynamic” as the building was still being searched. Seven of those who died were children. Mr. Murphy said that two others who were hurt were taken to nearly hospitals, one “to Children’s Hospital.” At a news conference down the street from the charred building, Mayor Jim Kenney, the son of a firefighter, seemed almost at a loss for words. “This is, without a doubt, one of the most tragic days in our city’s history,” he said. “Losing so many kids is just devastating.” As the sun set on Wednesday, Jacuita Purifoy stood before reporters on the street and said that three of her sisters were among the dead, along with her nieces and nephews. “I’ve been in and out of conscious all day,” said Ms Purifoy, who heard the news at around 7 a.m. The only member of the family who lived in the building that Ms. Purifoy knew to have survived was a 5-year-old boy. He was in the hospital in stable condition, she said, and asking about his family. “They was somebody,” Ms. Purifoy said of her sisters. “They was relevant, they was somebody who was supposed to continue life and die at an old age, not from stuff that could have been avoided.” Officials said they did not yet know the cause of the fire, though an investigation was underway. It was among the deadliest residential fires in the country’s recent history, including a 2019 fire that killed five children at a day care center in Erie, Pa., and a 2018 fire at an apartment building in Chicago that left 10 children dead. The century-old, three-story brick rowhouse belonged to the Philadelphia Housing Authority, which bought it in 1967, according to property records. It had been divided into two units: one on the first floor and half of the second; the other sharing the second floor and taking up the third.
