Two people died Sunday night when a three-alarm fire ripped through a two-story row house in Reading.
City Police Capt. Jeffrey Parr confirmed the deaths at the scene shortly before 11 p.m.
He said the victims were occupants of the home at 524 Spruce St., but had not been identified.
Parr said he believed the victims were alone in the residence when the fire broke out but other family members had arrived on the scene later and tried unsuccessfully to rescue them.
The fire was first reported about 8:20 p.m. The call was followed a short while later by calls for additional firefighters and police to assist with traffic control.
Firefighters were still battling to suppress the stubborn blaze an hour later, using four ladder trucks crowded into the narrow street and alley to train hoses on the burning roof. By 10 p.m. the fire appeared to be under control.
Several grief-stricken people identified themselves as relatives of the victims but declined to give their names joined scores of neighborhood residents at the scene.
Police had to contain the distraught relatives as they tried several times to cross the police lines.
One woman identified the victims as her grandparents. She said family members had tried to rescue them but "tried to open the door and everything just blew up."
Another of the onlookers was James Pachuilo Sr., who lives next door to the home that burned. He was worried that two of his three dogs were still inside his home.
"I just want to get my dogs out," he said. "The house can be repaired, but I can't replace them."
Carr said the cause of the fire was unknown but it would be the subject of a joint investigation by police and city and state fire marshals. That investigation, he said, could take weeks.
The heavily damaged house is the end unit in a series of row homes three blocks south of Penn Street and about a half-block east of Fifth Street, a short walk from Tyson-Schoener Elementary School.
No estimate of the damage was available.
Contact Rochel Leah Goldblatt: 610-371-5028 or [email protected].
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