Coroner: 5 killed in Pa. apartment fire

ALTOONA, Pa. — The worst fire in this central Pennsylvania city since the 1970s tore through a second-floor apartment and killed five people early Tuesday, spewing flames visible across the city, officials said.

The victims died of smoke inhalation and ranged in age from 17 to one man likely in his 50s, Blair County Coroner Patricia Ross said. Two were related. She declined to give further details pending notification of their families.

The red brick home was already engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived from a station about two blocks away about 6:45 a.m., said Assistant Fire Chief Tim Hileman. The cause is still under investigation.

Three people escaped from the first floor, where smoke alarms were ringing. The building passed code inspection two months ago and had smoke detectors, but it was unclear whether they were working on the second floor at the time of the fire, Hileman said.

"This is one the most tragic fire events in my career in the city," Hileman, a 13-year Altoona veteran, said at an afternoon news conference.

It took about an hour for 30 firefighters to get the blaze under control on a dead-end street in a middle-class neighborhood near downtown in the city of about 45,000 people. Some firefighters went through several breathing devices because they didn't want to stop searching for survivors, Hileman told the Altoona Mirror.

Police would not say whether the fire was suspicious but are treating the building as a crime scene, Sgt. Benjamin Jones said.

Kara Nale, who lived in the building for about a month last year, said the electricity flickered on and off at times. Nale said she was friends with one of the 17-year-old who died.

"He was just an all-around good guy," she said. "If you ever needed something, he was just there for you."