Firefighters battled a three-alarm blaze inside a church in North Philadelphia on Thursday.
The blaze started before 2:30 p.m. Thursday inside The Original Apostolic Faith Church of the Lord Jesus Christ in the 1500 block of North Broad Street. Crews arrived at a fully engulfed building located near Temple University.
Deputy Fire Commissioner Gary Loesch said, "When we pulled up our companies found heavy smoke and fire. We tried an aggressive interior attack, we were driven out by heavy heat and smoke." The blaze grew to three alarms. Early indicators show the fire started in the basement or the first floor of the three-story church.
"Due to the construction of the building and the damage it sustained, we were forced to pull our companies out, so now that's making it difficult to get water onto the scene of the fire," Loesch said.