Eight-Fatality Row House Fire, Chester, Pennsylvania: Lessons Learned from Residential Fires with Five or More Fatalities (December 5, 1992).

摘要

Multiple fatality residential fires, especially those which claim the lives of children, have a devastating effect on family members and friends left behind. The tremendous impacts of these fires on a community are powerful stimuli for improving fire safety and reinforcing many of the hard learned lessons of the past. During 1992, the United States Fire Administration investigated reports of nine residential fires, each of which claimed the lives of five or more individuals. All of these fires involved children; some claimed entire families. The most devastating of these fires occurred December 5, 1992, in Chester, Pennsylvania when an early morning fire swept through a row house killing eight children, all siblings, ranging in age from 15 months to 11 years. Three adults and two other children, ages 2 and 12, escaped unharmed. The fire was the worst loss of life from a single residential fire in the city's history, which dates to the early 17th century.