Wallingford Man Dies in House Fire

Multiple fire companies responded to a fatal blaze on Morris Lane, Nether Providence, on June 3. Photo courtesy of Garden City Fire Company

A 69-year-old Wallingford man perished in a house fire on Wednesday, June 3. The house, in the 300 block of Morris Lane, caught fire in the wake of a powerful thunderstorm, according to Garden City Fire Chief Patrick O’Rourke. The alarm was called in by a neighbor, he said. 

The first engine arrived on the scene at about 1 p.m. to find a ferocious blaze concentrated in the rear of the two-story house. A resident who had escaped the house told responders that his brother was trapped inside. 

“Crews made an aggressive attack,” O’Rourke said. They entered the house from both the front and the back, but had difficulty reaching the victim because of obstacles — what the fire chief called “bad hoarding conditions.”

Firefighters were eventually able to reach the second-floor landing, where they found the trapped resident. The emergency medical services team pronounced the man dead. His death has been attributed to smoke inhalation. 

Fire companies from across the community responded, including Garden City, South Media, Brookhaven, and Swarthmore. Media’s Emergency Medical Services responded as well. 

Crews took about 20 minutes to put out the fire, according to the Garden City Fire Department’s Facebook page.

“It was a sad day,” wrote Swarthmore Fire & Protective Services President Rick Lee in an email. “The conditions the crews encountered were difficult, as the fire was intense.” His firefighters handled the task of fire suppression, while Brookhaven’s crew tried to rescue the resident. 

The official cause of the fire will be determined after investigation is complete.