Philadelphia Fire Started When Boy, 5, Ignited Christmas Tree
The New York Times
Investigators determined that a 5-year-old, who told the police he had been playing with a lighter, was the only person in the part of the apartment where the fire began.
The fire that broke out in a Philadelphia rowhouse last Wednesday, leaving 12 dead including nine children, was most likely caused when a 5-year-old boy ignited a Christmas tree with a lighter, city officials said on Tuesday.
The fire erupted before dawn, quickly engulfing the second story of a brick rowhouse in the city’s Fairmount neighborhood. The 5-year-old, one of only two people in the apartment who survived, told the police last week that he had been playing with the lighter, forming the earliest theory about the fire’s cause.
Investigators looked for other possible sources of the fire but found nothing that disproved the account given by the child, who was the only person in the part of the apartment where the blaze began, Adam K. Thiel, the Philadelphia fire commissioner, said in a news conference.