3 Children Killed in Row House Fire

Parents, neighbors tried to run back into the house to save the children

Three children are dead after fire officials say a fast-moving fire trapped them on the third floor of a rowhouse in Reading.

Fire Chief William Rehr III says flames were shooting from the front and back of the 1437 N. 10th St. when firefighters arrived on the scene within three minutes of receiving a 911 call around 1 a.m. Thursday, because there is a fire station near the home.

Rehr says the two adults were burned trying to rescue the children. The man and woman were taken to Reading Hospital for treatment. Their conditions were not immediately released.

"I'm pretty sure they (the children) were dead already from the way that fire was going," Rehr told the Reading Eagle. "There was nothing the firefighters could have done to rescue them at that point."

Fire officials did not release the identities of the residents, but neighbors said a family with three daughters, ranging in age from about 7 to 14 years old lived in the home.

The two younger children were in elementary school, neighbors told the Reading Eagle. The eldest child was in high school.

"I saw the father; he was burned on his arms but he wanted to go back in to save the kids," Yolanda Martinez, 44, who lives a block away, told the Reading Eagle. "I kept him on the ground and other neighbors went in to try to save them."

A handful of people ran into the burning house to try to save the children but only made it to the second floor before the flames and smoke were too much, neighbors said.

One neighbor, Sharay Dennison, 19, said when she walked out of her house across the street she saw the children's mother on the ledge outside the third floor of the burning building.

"She was crying and she was screaming, like any mother would about her kids," Dennison told the Reading Eagle. "She went back and forth, banging on the neighbors' windows, asking for help. And then she went back into the burning house."

A city fire marshal is investigating the cause of the blaze.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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