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Year In Review: 4 Children Killed In Southwest Philly Fire

By Cherri Gregg

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - KYW Newsradio is looking back at the stories that made headlines in 2014. Gesner Street in Southwest Philadelphia became a household name this summer when a fast-moving fire claimed the lives of four children of Liberian descent, leaving a tight-knit community in shock.

It was 2:30 am on July 5th when a couch on a porch on the 6500 block of Gesner Street caught fire and quickly spread to neighboring homes.

Four-year-old twins Maria and Marialla Bowah and brothers four-year-old Patrick Sanyeah and seven-week-old Taj Jacque died, unable to escape the inferno. despite the heroic efforts of Dewen Bowah.

And then confusion within the Liberian immigrant community followed by outrage over how four children could have died in a fire with a fire station just a few hundred feet away.

The city released 9-1-1 tapes and investigated.

"The fire fighters did their jobs...they're not the bad people here," Mayor Michael Nutter said.

In the meantime, donations for the displaced families poured in as well as money to bury the four children laid to rest in August and the community left to pick up the pieces.

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