N. Phila. woman is 2nd fire fatality of new year

Two days after city fire officials declared 2008 among the least-deadly for fire victims, 2009 continued its lethal launch early yesterday, when a 24-year-old woman became the new year's second fatal fire victim.

The woman, who was not identified by officials, died and 18 people were hospitalized for smoke inhalation and other injuries after a blaze broke out shortly after 4 a.m. in an 11-story apartment building at 11th and Norris streets, Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers said.

The fire didn't advance much farther than the third-floor bedroom where it started, but thick, choking smoke panicked many of the 470 residents who evacuated the Norris Apartments, which is owned by the Philadelphia Housing Authority, Ayers said. One desperate teenager leaped from a third-floor window onto mattresses residents had dragged below.

Investigators said yesterday that a burning cigarette had ignited bedsheets. The woman who died was helping to evacuate residents and may have fallen and injured herself, said Fire Department Executive Chief Daniel Williams.

About 80 firefighters responded to the blaze, which proved challenging because they had to "go vertical," Ayers said. Still, they had it under control within 33 minutes, which Ayers credited to frequent training drills that firefighters had conducted at the high-rise.

The blaze came just hours before Ayers headed to Washington, D.C., to join U.S. Fire Administrator Greg Cade and other big-city fire chiefs to urge citizens nationwide to install, maintain and test smoke alarms.

Their crusade sprang from the wake of one of the deadliest holiday seasons in recent U.S. history; since Thanksgiving, more than 200 people have died in about 160 fires nationally. In many of those cases, people did not have working smoke alarms.

The smoke alarms at Norris Apartments sounded appropriately early yesterday, but 82 percent of Philadelphia's fire deaths last year occurred in properties without operable smoke alarms, Ayers said. He said that citizens who need but can't afford a smoke alarm can get one by calling the Fire Department at 215-686-1176.

Fire deaths in Philadelphia were down 19 percent last year from 2007, when 47 people died in fires, according to an analysis the department issued this week.

With 38 fire fatalities, 2008 was the least-deadly year for fire victims since 2002, when 32 people died in fires. Ayers attributed the decline to the department's Freedom from Fire campaign, a fire-safety-education program started last year.

Nearly 200 people were injured in fires in 2008, according to the report. Careless smoking continues to be a leading cause of fatal fires, accounting for 10 victims last year, according to the report.

Firefighters hope a new city law they championed will lower skyrocketing carbon-monoxide incidents.

The law, which took effect New Year's Day, requires residents to install carbon-monoxide detectors in their homes. *