9 firefighters, 3 residents hurt in high rise fire

A dozen people, including nine firefighters, were hurt and scores of residents had to be evacuated today after a 2-alarm fire broke out on the eighth floor of a high-rise public housing apartment building in North Philadelphia.

"We had people trapped," said Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers. "We had to rescue people from the involved floor and the above floors."

One firefighter was in critical but stable condition at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania after being transferred from Hahnemann University Hospital, according to Executive Fire Chief Daniel Williams.

Outside the building, a firefighter was overheard describing how he found a comrade on the floor near the fire and dragged him out, so he could be rushed down the stairwell on a flexible stretcher.

"Soot" was seen coming out of the victim's nose and mouth, another firefighter said.

The critical firefighter, a five-year veteran with Engine 27, was found unconscious, said Mike Conroy, an official with Local 22, the firefighters union.

Five of the injured firefighters were treated and released by shortly after 10 a.m., with a sixth expected to also be released this morning, Williams said.

The other victims included a woman, a boy and girl, Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers said at the scene. Their conditions were not immediately known.

The blaze was reported about 5:45 a.m. in the Philadelphia Housing Authority building at 1516 Judson Way, near North 24th and West Jefferson Streets, and a second alarm was sounded at about 6:20 a.m.

The fire, which appeared to be centered in one apartment, was declared under control at 7:06 a.m. but firefighters remained in the building hosing down embers and removing residents afterward.

All 143 units in the building in the Norman Blumberg Apartments complex were occupied when the fire broke out, Ayers said.

More than 100 residents - including many children - went to a temporary shelter at the nearby John F. Reynolds School.

Nikisha Morris, 33, and her three children were trapped in their eighth-floor apartment - about 20 feet from the fire - until about 45 minutes after the fire was declared under control.

"When the fire started, the alarm didn't go off. It didn't go off for like an hour and a half," a clearly shaken Morris said just after emerging from the building.

Someone banging on the doors alerted residents to the blaze before the firefighters came, she said.

"It was horrible," with smoke too thick to see through, Morris said of conditions on the eighth floor.

Jamillah Bellamy, 29, said she, her four children and two neighbors were trapped on the 13th floor as smoke filled their apartment.

"We damn near died," she said. "We were stuck in one room, breathing out the window, crying."

She said they remained in contact with 911 during the ordeal and were told to stay put until firefighters reached them.

Bellamy said firefighters walked them down the stairwell through the smoke to safety.

Bellamy's neighbor, Mazeo Walker, said he and his wife Latanya tried to make their way down the stairs, but could not make it past the ninth floor and retreated back to the 13th floor.

The smoke, he said, was "real bad. We couldn't see, we couldn't breathe."

TV news footage showed flames leaping from three windows of the building in the early stages of the blaze.

Ayers said battling the fire was complicated by the direction of the wind.

The fire was on the west side of the building and the winds were from the west, blowing smoke and heat back into the building, making conditions like "an oven" as firefighters battled the blaze from the inside.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.