Daughter dead, mother critical in Northeast Philadelphia fire

SOMERTON (WPVI) -- One person is dead and another hospitalized following a fast-moving house fire in the Somerton section of Northeast Philadelphia.

Fire officials say a mother, father, and their adult daughter were inside the home on the 600 block of Avon Street when fire broke out just before 7:30 a.m. Friday.

Arriving firefighters found the mother on the first floor by the door.

They performed CPR, and she was rushed to Aria Health/Torresdale in critical condition.

The fire was extinguished in less than 20 minutes.

Crews searched the home and found the couple's middle-aged daughter in an upstairs bathroom.

She had already died, and became the city's seventh fire fatality this year.

"It's shocking," neighbor Lorrie Henderson told Action News. "I just saw her the other day walking her dog."

The father was in the basement and able to escape when a neighbor knocked down the basement door.

Officials believe the family may have tried to fight the fire on their own.

"When members first arrived, there wasn't a lot of fire," said Fire Commissioner Derrick Sawyer. "Heavy smoke tells us the fire was burning for a while."

Fire officials believe the fire started on the first floor.

The fire department had been to this same property nearly 15 years ago to service the smoke alarms.

But on this Friday morning, no working smoke detectors were found.

"Even though we serviced the property in 2001," said Sawyer, "that was more than 10 years ago. They need them to be updated."

Personnel from the American Red Cross and the fire department will walk through the neighborhood Friday afternoon at 3:00 p.m. distributing fire safety information and installing smoke detectors.

The cause of this deadly fire remains under investigation.