Eight children among 12 killed in US fire

Philadelphia fire officials revised the death toll down to 12, from the 13 they had earlier reported.

"Keep those babies in your prayers," Mayor Jim Kenney told reporters, after First Deputy Fire Commissioner Craig Murphy told a news conference that eight children were killed in the blaze.

The blaze broke out about 6.30am on the second floor of a three-storey house in the city's Fairmont neighbourhood. 

The building is owned by the federally funded Philadelphia Housing Authority, the fourth-largest housing authority in the United States.

Fire officials said the cause of the fire was still being investigated but the building was overcrowded, with 26 people inside a structure meant to accommodate two families. 

They also cited the failure of smoke detectors.

Neighbours told local news crews they were jolted awake by the sound of screams and a smell of burning, and ran outside to see flames licking second-floor windows.

"It was terrible," Murphy told reporters. "I've been around for 35 years now and this is probably one of the worst fires I've ever been to."

Conflicting accounts were given about the building's smoke detectors.

Fire department officials said four detectors were installed in the building and had last been inspected in 2020. 

Dinesh Indala, executive vice president at the Philadelphia Housing Authority, told reporters there were six devices and they were most recently inspected in May 2021.

A resident told the Philadelphia Inquirer the housing authority should replace battery-powered smoke detectors with hard-wired versions, saying tenants sometimes removed the batteries when cooking or smoking inside.

Jenna Collins, a housing attorney at Philadelphia's Community Legal Services, said some tenants had requested hard-wired detectors.

Collins said the housing authority appeared to have installed enough detectors and inspected them frequently enough to comply with the codes. 

She said it was not unusual to see overcrowded public housing.

"It's a symptom of the fact that there's not enough habitable, affordable housing," she said. 

"Especially right now, when we've had so many people in the city lose income."

The US Department of Housing and Urban Development has offered assistance to Philadelphia officials, Housing Secretary Marcia Fudge said.