Multiple people, including children, unaccounted for after fire at Pennsylvania home where police officers were shot
Multiple people, including children, were unaccounted for following a house fire and shooting that wounded two police officers Wednesday at a suburban Philadelphia home, authorities said.
Officers from East Lansdowne, Lansdowne, and Upper Darby responded to a 911 call reporting that an 11-year-old girl had been shot Wednesday afternoon, Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer said. After arriving at a house in East Lansdowne, about 5 miles west of downtown Philadelphia, Stollsteimer said officers "immediately" came under gunfire from the property.
Two officers were injured, including one who was shot in the arm and other in the leg, officials said. Stollsteimer declined to identify the officers, citing privacy, but said they worked for the East Lansdowne and Lansdowne departments. Officers from several nearby departments also responded.
The officers were taken to a Philadelphia hospital and were expected to be released Thursday, 6ABC reported.
The three-story house was then set on fire by an "individual inside," he said. Large flames were seen rising from the roof and top floor of the property before spreading to the lower levels, gutting the structure.
Stollsteimer said later Wednesday that authorities have locked down the scene but are waiting for the fire to be extinguished for further investigation. He later added that six to eight people, including children, were unaccounted for.
"I will say with a heavy heart that we are afraid there might be more than one person in that house," Stollsteimer said during a news conference Wednesday evening. "We know the victim's family had a lot of people living in that house, including children."
"It is our terrible fear that they may (have been) inside that house when it was burned," he added. "We are hopeful that that is not true, but we will not know until tomorrow morning."
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'We don’t know their status'
By Wednesday evening, Stollsteimer said the fire had smoldered and smoke was still rising from the wreckage as firefighters worked the scene. The side of a neighboring home was also charred and the entire block was evacuated, according to the district attorney.
There was no immediate information on the conditions of the individuals who may have been inside the home, including the child who was reported wounded. The whereabouts of the person who fired at the officers also weren’t clear, but Sollsteimer said there were "no threats to the community from that house."
"We don’t know who was in the house, we don’t know who the shooter was, we don’t know how many people are in there, we don’t know their status, we don’t know if they’re alive," Stollsteimer said.
Authorities said they would search the home Thursday once the fire was cleared. There were still hotspots smoldering Thursday morning, preventing a search of the house.
Contributing: The Associated Press
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Pennsylvania fire and shooting leaves multiple people unaccounted for
