Philadelphia House Fire Leaves Six Dead

Careless smoking started a fire that consumed a row house and killed four children and two adults Sunday, fire officials said.

The 5:30 a.m. fire started on a first-floor living room sofa in a three-story home with no smoke detectors, fire Capt. Armand Gersbach said.

The victims were identified only as a man and a woman in their 20s and two boys and two girls ranging from 11 months to 6 years old. A second man in his 20s jumped from a second-floor window and was hospitalized in critical condition.

The injured man, Mark Bonner, tried in vain to get back inside the house, said Kareemah Robinson, a teenage neighbor. She said she saw the man who died hit his head after jumping out a third-floor window.

“The house was just up in flames,” Robinson said, describing the dead as “nice people.”

Neighbors said the four children were cousins spending the night at their grandmother’s house, that the dead woman was their aunt and Bonner their uncle.

James Nelson, a friend of Bonner’s, said the grandmother returned from working an overnight shift to see her house ablaze.

A day earlier, a woman and four children ages 3 to 8 died in a row house fire in Reading, about 50 miles northwest of Philadelphia. Authorities said that fire was started by a pot of food left cooking unattended on a stove.