Firefighters Put Out Blaze, Find Body

Firefighters searching through the rubble of a Philadelphia fire found a man's body in the boarded up house next door.

The blaze began around 2 a.m. this morning on the 3300 block of Jasper Street in the city’s Kensington neighborhood.

"I was asleep and my dogs jumped me while I was asleep... and they kept on jumping on me," said resident Matthew Roos. "Suddenly I start smelling smoke."

Philadelphia Police say they arrived first on the scene. Officers found Roos outside the home with his two German Shepherds but his elderly mother was trapped inside.

Two 24th District officers ran into the house and rescued the woman, authorities on the scene said.

Roos' mother was hospitalized with smoke inhalation.

Once the fire was under control, firefighters say that they found an unidentified man dead upstairs in the house next door. It is unclear how the man died.

Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers told NBC10's Monique Braxton that investigators believe the dead man was squatting and that they found drug paraphernalia next to his body.

"The building was boarded up in front and boarded up in the back and firefighters actually had to tear the boards and everything off the windows to fight the fire," Ayers said.

A third home was also damaged.

The cause of the blaze remains under investigation.

Contact Us