On January 5, a five-year-old boy who escaped the fire that killed 13 people in a Philadelphia apartment told investigators the blaze started after he accidentally lit a Christmas tree on fire while playing with a lighter.
The probable cause of the file was included in the search warrant application as city, and federal investigators sought to determine the cause of the fire. Considered the city’s deadliest in more than a century, the fire claimed the lives of three sisters and nine of their children early Wednesday.
When first responders arrived at the three-story rowhouse before sunrise, the boy had made it out of the building. He then told a neighbor — and later a paramedic, a firefighter, and hospital staff — how the fire had started and that his mother had died.
The charred, three-story brick duplex is a public housing unit owned by the Philadelphia Housing Authority. The lack of hard-wired smoke detectors was decried by those who witnessed the damage. Neighbors mentioned that the house had only one exit. When they moved into the upstairs four-bedroom apartment a decade ago, the family had six members. Since then, the family had increased to eight more children but was still within the legal limit of occupants for the unit, according to Kelvin Jeremiah, the housing authority’s president and CEO.
According to the National Fire Protection Association, a nonprofit safety group, fires involving Christmas trees are much more likely to be fatal than other types of house fires. The group said that Christmas trees cause about 160 fires per year, causing two deaths annually and $10 million in property damage.
Sandra Washington paced just outside the police cordon after being told she couldn’t pass to give the gifts of consolation to the family.
“When someone moves in a public housing unit, the city says, ‘I’m taking responsibility for this family, and I’m assisting them.’ And that’s in every way,” she said. “These are children. These are kids, and they’re gone. Their future is over because they didn’t have a battery in the smoke detector?”
Our condolences and prayers go out to the family.
