Man suffers burns in Logan house fire, residents displaced
LOGAN (WPVI) -- Flames erupted in a rowhouse Friday night and spread to other dwellings, leaving a man hospitalized for burns and displacing residents in the Logan section of Philadelphia.
Chopper 6 was over the scene early on in the 4900 block of North Carlisle, bearing witness to what firefighters were seeing on the ground.
"The companies arrived and found, I guess the way it was described to me, 'Fire everywhere'" said Commissioner Adam Thiel.
Thiel says high winds played a significant role in the intense fire. From the air, Chopper 6 captured bright flashes of light as electrical wires and transformers blow. It was for all intents and purposes a wall of fire sending more than 100 firefighters in to do battle.
"A fire in a wind-driven situation like that, once it gets out of the building or origin, it very quickly can spread to adjacent occupancies, that's exactly what we had happen here," said Thiel.
The commissioner says one occupant, a man in his 50s, had to jump from a second-floor window. He was rushed to the hospital with second-degree burns to his hands and face. In all, four row homes were consumed, leaving an undetermined amount of people homeless, including David Brown.
"I mean I'm sick to my stomach right now. I might seem normal, but it's hitting me, cause at the end of the day, everything I have was in there, I don't have nothing," said David Brown, homeowner.
While the cause has not been determined, residents say the fire started in an abandoned row home occupied by a squatter.
"He got too much going on in the abandoned house, it's basically abandoned, you could say its a crack house, I don't know," said Brown. "It was abandoned and he was squatting, that's all I know, and it cost me my house whatever he had going on in there."
The Fire Marshal's Office is investigating at the end of what has been a very busy day for firefighters. At least six or seven fires Friday alone they have battled.
Meantime, the Red Cross is assisting the occupants of the four row homes destroyed.
