PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — One person is dead after a Saturday morning fire in a Southwest Philadelphia apartment complex.
The fire started around 7 a.m. at the International City apartment complex, at 8500 Lindbergh Boulevard. One resident, Marlene Dennis, said she was awakened by flames under her door.
"I don't know how it started, but the flames were huge," said Dennis, "so I kicked my back window out and went out the back window."
Philadelphia Fire Marshal, Chief Dennis Merrigan said firefighters were able to suppress the fire right away, but unfortunately, there was one fatality, identified by police as a 27-year-old man. He was found and pronounced dead at the scene. Two others were taken to Penn Presbyterian Hospital with minor injuries.
Merrigan said a full investigation is underway, though no details are available yet on the cause of the fire.
Dennis believed it could've been much worse. Once she escaped from her apartment, she said she saw a man throw children to safety.
"I saw everybody jumping," she recounted. "I kept saying, 'Jump, jump, jump! You're gonna get caught!'"
Her husband Thomas escaped from the other side of their apartment and met up with his wife outside in time to witness the heroism of his neighbors.
"Somebody on the bottom caught them. I was dumbfounded, really. I was just really nervous," he said.
"They caught them and everybody was able to," added Marlene Dennis, "but they took several to the hospital, though. Several were cut up pretty bad and bruised and what not, yeah."
Another neighbor, Denise, described it as "the most intense fire I have ever seen in my life, and it was scary."
The Red Cross was on hand to help 11 people who were displaced.
"All that heat from the fire busted out all those windows," said Marlene Dennis, "and when you heard it, it was popping — pop, pop, pop, pop, pop!"
