PHILADELPHIA -- A fire burned a fabric shop, upstairs apartments and a neighboring boutique Saturday evening, causing a partial roof collapse that killed a firefighter and injured a colleague who tried in vain to rescue him.
Firefighters saluted as the body of 53-year-old Capt. Michael Goodwin was carried from the remnants of the burned building in the city's Fabric Row section. He was killed in a fall from the third floor roof to the second, Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers said at a news conference.
The colleague who tried save him, 28-year-old Andrew Godlinski, was burned but is expected to survive, Ayers said.
The fire broke out around 5 p.m. at Jack B. Fabrics and spread to Urban Princess, a store next door. The stores' proprietors said everyone in both buildings at the time of the fire managed to escape.
The fire's cause wasn't immediately known, but fabric store owner Bruce Blumenthal told The Philadelphia Inquirer he believes it started in a wall and may have been electrical in nature.
Blumenthal said he smelled smoke coming from the basement and found a box of collars and cuffs on fire. He tried to put the flames out with an extinguisher, to no avail.
The fire cut power to more than 300 customers. The Red Cross is assisting at least 17 people.
Two city firefighters died a year ago this month when a building collapsed while they were inspecting it after an adjacent blaze.
What You Should Know About Comments on Sacbee.com
Sacbee.com is happy to provide a forum for reader interaction, discussion, feedback and reaction to our stories. However, we reserve the right to delete inappropriate comments or ban users who can't play nice. (See our full terms of service here.)
Here are some rules of the road:
• Keep your comments civil. Don't insult one another or the subjects of our articles. If you think a comment violates our guidelines click the "Report Abuse" link to notify the moderators. Responding to the comment will only encourage bad behavior.
• Don't use profanities, vulgarities or hate speech. This is a general interest news site. Sometimes, there are children present. Don't say anything in a way you wouldn't want your own child to hear.
• Do not attack other users; focus your comments on issues, not individuals.
• Stay on topic. Only post comments relevant to the article at hand.
• Do not copy and paste outside material into the comment box.
• Don't repeat the same comment over and over. We heard you the first time.
• Do not use the commenting system for advertising. That's spam and it isn't allowed.
• Don't use all capital letters. That's akin to yelling and not appreciated by the audience.
• Don't flag other users' comments just because you don't agree with their point of view. Please only flag comments that violate these guidelines.
You should also know that The Sacramento Bee does not screen comments before they are posted. You are more likely to see inappropriate comments before our staff does, so we ask that you click the "Report Abuse" link to submit those comments for moderator review. You also may notify us via email at feedback@sacbee.com. Note the headline on which the comment is made and tell us the profile name of the user who made the comment. Remember, comment moderation is subjective. You may find some material objectionable that we won't and vice versa.
If you submit a comment, the user name of your account will appear along with it. Users cannot remove their own comments once they have submitted them.
Order Reprint
About Comments
Reader comments on Sacbee.com are the opinions of the writer, not The Sacramento Bee. If you see an objectionable comment, click the "Report Abuse" link below it. We will delete comments containing inappropriate links, obscenities, hate speech, and personal attacks. Flagrant or repeat violators will be banned. See more about comments here.