6-year-old girl, woman killed in North Philadelphia rowhome fire

Neighbors grieve death of woman, 6-year-old girl in house fire

A fire in a North Philadelphia rowhome took the lives of a woman and a 6-year-old girl and neighbors of the two are mourning their loss.

PHILADELPHIA - Red tape hangs from the metal door swung open on the two-story row home on the 3,000 block of North 4th Street. 

Tragedy struck here overnight claiming the lives of a 6-year-old girl and what a friend and neighbors say was her 45-year-old mother.

What we know:

Firefighters from the Philadelphia Fire Department were called to the 3000 block of North 4th Street around 3:30 a.m.

They were met by two elderly people who were safely freed from the home's front porch security cage.

Fire crews set them free and entered the smoke-filled structure to battle flames in the basement and find the two children in a bathroom left there by a 20-year-old friend of the mother.

The children and their mother, also in the basement, suffered smoke inhalation. The mother and daughter died in the hospital.

6-year-old boy killed, 8-year-old girl injured in North Philadelphia rowhome fire

A 6-year-old girl was killed, and an 8-year-old boy is in critical condition after a rowhome fire that sparked overnight in North Philadelphia.

Daniel McCarty, Acting Executive Chief, explained, "He attempted to get them out through the back exit in the basement they normally use but there was so much fire that he, himself, was able to get out but that was after trying to put the children in a secure location."

Neighbors, friends mourn:

Soniha Alvarez/North Philadelphia: I just found out a half hour ago. I was going to rush over here but I’m going to have to go to the hospital.

FOX 29’s Jeff Cole spoke with neighbor, Keith Wals, "The little girl is dead. The woman is dead."

Wals replied, "And I feel bad, sad for them. They were good people and didn’t bother anybody, always happy, always came to see my wife and everything."

Alvarez cried, saying, "I used to take them to the park. We went every summer to the pool. We even went fishing."

ATF agents and local investigators gathered around a blackened door at midday, focused on the handle and lock while neighbors clustered near the idling fire trucks.

The fire department said there was a non-working smoke detector on the second floor.

What we don't know:

A cause of the fire has not been determined.