Four killed, 3 injured in holiday cooking fire in Pennsylvania

Reuters ^ | July 4 2013

[rickmichaels]

Four people, including two children, were killed and three others were critically injured when an unattended holiday cooking fire swept through a home without smoke detectors in Lancaster, Pa., a fire official said on Thursday.

The blaze started at 3 a.m. on Independence Day in the first-floor kitchen of the row house where 14 people lived and which was not equipped with smoke detectors, said Lieutenant Thomas Paul, an assistant fire marshal of the Lancaster City Bureau of Fire.

[Secret Agent Man]

if you cook at 3am you better be awake while you’re cooking.

[Irenic]

row house where 14 people lived
*******************
Holy cow! Is that normal? Terrible, just terrible. I am grateful some survived. God bless ‘em.

[NonValueAdded]

Prayers

[Tax-chick]

I’m confused. Do they mean someone left the stove on?

[BenLurkin]

This is a terrible tragedy, but I suspect alcohol was involved.

[bigheadfred]

who starts a fire in their kitchen and then walks away that seems kinda dumb

[ClearCase_guy]

I’m thinking this is Amish. Real Amish. Lancaster County in PA?

No smoke detectors, and a cooking fire in the house. These things happen.

[4Runner]

What do you cook at three in the morning? Meth?

[Racer1]

Possible, but not likely in the middle of town.

[ronnie raygun]

BBQ in the living room at 3 am? Some how I think alcohol and drugs may be involved. What say you?

[erlayman]

According to police said it was frozen potatoes placed in the oven, which could have been left unattended for various reasons.

[Carriage Hill]

"The fire started in the kitchen of a three-story Lancaster duplex at about 3 a.m. after frozen potatoes were placed in the oven, fire officials said."

Fox 43 TV News (York) initially reported that it's likely one of those 'bakeable store boxes' w/ open top and vents, which wasn't being timed or watched, and caught fire. Never put cardboared anything into an oven. Poof!

Forensics and SP Fire Marshal are investigating,

I live in East York, and heard the multiple FD/EMT/LEO vehicle sirens at O'Dark'Thirty Five. Although my Condo Complex is on one of the higher ridges in the valley along Rt 30 East to Lancaster, I could see the fire and smoke at the area with many EMS lights and FD equipment.

[Chode]

what the hell... indoor cookout?

[njslim]

I am a firefighter - get a number of these

Apartment complex in town People have pots on stove then leave. Smoke detectors go off. We bust in door find apartment full of smoke

Aint imigration from turd world great.......

[Abby4116]

link

A more in-depth article, interviews via television station. I don't think too many Amish live in Lancaster City (as opposed to Lancaster County).

[Carriage Hill]

No further news report until 11pm, I switching around to find anything I can, Many of those 15ft wide, sardine can row houses are overloaded with familys and are death traps, just waiting to happen. RIP.

[SnuffaBolshevik]

"I’m thinking this is Amish. Real Amish."

Negative.

The majority of the city of Lancaster PA is occupied by Puerto Ricans and other Hispanics drawn by Pennsylvania's lucrative welfare benefits. This town is not what it was 40 years ago.

You could furiously swing a dead cat 24/7 inside the city limits of Lancaster and you would not hit a true Amishman living there. They are on the farms outside the towns and cities of Lancaster County.

That being said, prayers up for the people hurt or killed by the fire.

[surroundedbyblue]

Yeah when I read the part about 14 people living in this place, I immediately wondered if this was a house of turd world immigrants

[fieldmarshaldj]

Dreadful. RIP.