Officials have not released the names or ages of the eight children and four adults who died.
That disclosure was included in a search warrant application as city and federal investigators sought to determine the cause of the blaze, the city's deadliest in more than a century, which took the lives of three sisters and several of their children early Wednesday.
"I know that we will hopefully be able to provide a specific origin and cause to this fire and to provide some answers to the loved ones and, really, to the city," said Matthew Varisco, who leads the Philadelphia branch of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. In 2021, there were 14 people living in the upstairs four-bedroom apartment, according to Kelvin Jeremiah, the housing authority's president and CEO. Six family members had moved there a decade ago, and the family had grown substantially since then, adding eight children, he said.
Jeremiah, who struggled to keep his composure at times, said officials had reached out to surviving family members from both apartments to help find them new homes.The fire department previously said none of the four smoke alarms in the building appeared to have been working. But housing authority officials said Thursday the building actually had 13 tamper-resistant, 10-year detectors, all of which were operational during the last inspection in May 2021.
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