In wake of fire that killed 7 in Southwest Phila. home, a plea for help

On Dec. 26, Samuel Teah got into a small argument with his mother that kept him from attending a gathering in the basement of her Southwest Philadelphia home.

That fight may have saved his life.

He was awakened the next morning by his television timer to a story on the news that seven people of Liberian descent had died in a house fire.

"Wow, God bless their souls!" thought Teah, 23, before nodding back to sleep.

As it painfully turned out, the fire was at his mother's house and those souls included his brother, his two sisters, his two nephews and his niece.

"It's been very hard," he said. "You can only look at the agony of it all now."

Yesterday at a news conference, family, friends and survivors made a plea to the community for financial assistance with funeral costs and recovery funds.

The quick-moving fire began, according to the fire marshal, in the basement of the three-story home on Elmwood Avenue near 64th Street when Teah's mother, Christiana Teah, filled a kerosene heater improperly.

In a renovation effort, stairs from the first floor to the basement had been removed, leaving only one means of escape: an outside door that was blocked by the fire.

Christiana Teah and four others managed to escape. Her children Elliot Teah, 23; Vivian Teah, 25, and Jennifer Teah, 17, did not.

Also killed in the fire were Elliot Teah's son, Zyhire Teah, 18 months; Zyhire's two half-siblings, Mariam Dosso, 7, and Ramere Dosso, 8; and family friend Henry W. Gbokoloi.

All of the victims were found huddled together when firefighters arrived.

Samuel Teah is grateful for the outpouring of support from the community at large, and especially the Liberian community, but he said that the family is still weighed down by a $16,000 debt for funeral costs.

The survivors, one of whom remains in the burn unit of Crozer-Chester Medical Center, Upland, Delaware County, need financial help, as do the family members of the victims, including Gbokoloi's wife and seven children, he said.

All seven victims will be laid to rest this weekend.

"We wanted to bury them the way they died - together," Samuel Teah said.

A wake will be held at 6:30 p.m. tomorrow at the Divine Mercy Parish, Chester Avenue near 67th Street. Services will begin at Divine Mercy at 8:30 a.m. Saturday.

Donations can be made online through the victims' memorial Web site at www.philaseven firevictims.org or mailed to: Phila Seven Fire Victims Memorial Fund account #2000031121480, Wachovia Eastwick Financial Center, 2904 Island Ave., Philadelphia, Pa. 19153. *