Two children killed in Upper Darby rowhouse fire
Crews have yet to determine the cause of the fire, which also injured the children’s mother. Fire Chief Derrick Sawyer told reporters the blaze began on the 300 block of Margate Road just after 4 a.m.
Two children died in an Upper Darby rowhouse fire Tuesday that took minutes to contain, injuring their mother and two firefighters.
Fire Chief Derrick Sawyer told reporters the blaze began on the 300 block of Margate Road just after 4 a.m. Tuesday, and was spilling out of the second floor when crews arrived.
Sawyer said two children, whose names have not been released, were killed in the fire. Their mother suffered some injuries after escaping through a back window. She was being treated at a local hospital. Two firefighters were also injured. Their conditions were not released.
Several neighbors said the two children who died were twin sisters.
On Tuesday afternoon, the narrow block of rowhouses where the charred remains of the house stood was quiet, save for the sounds of neighbors talking as they gathered on their stoops and two men toted industrial fans to neighboring homes.
On the front lawn of the house, a memorial board had been set up, with messages written by neighbors up and down the block, and stuffed animals nestled against it.
“RIP little angels. May your gentle souls RIP,” read one message.
The windows and doors of the house were boarded up, their frames blackened and burned. The smell of smoke still hung heavy in the air and charred beams dangled from the front porch of the house. Gnarled, twisted window frames and shards of glass littered the back alley behind the house.
It was just after 4 a.m. when Danajah Hill was awakened by someone screaming “Help.” When she opened her window, she said, she saw that the house a few doors down had gone up in flames, with thick black smoke billowing out.
She ran to the house and outside in the back alley, she saw the mother of the two children. The woman, who appeared to have a broken leg, pleaded with Hill to rescue her children, who were still in the house.
Hill tried to get into the house from the back at the basement level, along with a neighbor. Reginald Spotwood, 41, said he raced to the house after hearing the mother’s screams and when he got there, he said, he could hear children crying for help.
Spotwood ran to get his fire extinguisher and used it as he went inside but it did little to clear the flames that engulfed the room as he entered. The smoke was too thick to see through, he said. As tried in vain to reach the kids, Spotwood said, firefighters arrived and told him to get to safety.
On the steps of his house on Tuesday afternoon, Spotwood said he wished he had been able to rescue the children.
“I’m trying not to think about it too much,” he said. “The best part would have come if I had been able to save them.”
Hill, 19, said she was still in shock.
“It hit me but it didn’t fully hit me. I really wish we would’ve gotten the kids out in time,” she said.
Bridgette Montgomery, 48, lives next door to the house that was engulfed in flames. She, too, was awakened by screams. After running to her middle room and looking out the window, she saw the mother on the ground. The woman, she said, was screaming for her children to jump from the window, and Montgomery joined in that plea, but they did not leap to safety.
Reflecting on their deaths Tuesday, Montgomery grew emotional. “We shared the same step. We shared the same house. We shared the same back walk,” she said. “I see them every day.”
Fire crews came quickly and were able to contain the “fast moving, hot burning fire” in about 24 minutes, said Sawyer, the fire chief, who said firefighters made a “valiant effort” to save the children.
“Today is a sad day in the township,” said Sawyer.
The cause of the blaze is still under investigation, he said.
Kyle Miller, who has lived on the same block of Margate Street for nine years, said the incident inspired him to review fire safety with his own family, including creating an escape route.
Miller called the fire “heartbreaking.” He remembered the children as frequently playing on the porch, “always joyful” and laughing.
Sawyer told NBC10 he heard a smoke alarm sounding in the basement of the rowhouse, but reminded residents to make sure they have working alarms throughout their homes.