wired? they were battery-operated, and they were ten-year lithium batteries in these smoke detecters. they weren t hard wired. reporter: any indication of where the fire started? too early. that s information we re gathering right now. reporter: can you talk about any of the difficulties of getting people out of this home? egress windows? why was it so difficult to get people out? it wasn t difficult to get people out. they got people out very quickly. the two they were transported to those local hospitals were immediately transported and taken to the hospital by our members. so once they when they got to them, they were able to remove them. reporter: there are unconfirmed reports online or on social media there s problems getting through dispatch that may have slowed the response.
positive. the problem right now is not necessarily capacity or beds, it s staffing and it s a major problem. the florida hospital association president talking to us about what she describes as a deepening extent of this crisis. here s what she said. it really tracks for where the population density is throughout the state, but what i would say is, every hospital is struggling with a staffing shortage like they ve never experienced. it was bad before the pandemic, made worse by the pandemic and now because of staff being out due to covid is just a gasoline can on the fire. reporter: and here is the other new development this week. both the governor of the state of florida, ron desantis, and the surgeon general here saying that asymptomatic people should not be tested for covid-19. the surgeon general, jose, said that if you re not symptomatic and you re positive, you re not
and when they got there, they found the second story of this three-story row house engulfed in flames and it took them some 50 minutes to put out the fire. as you reported, our affiliate in philadelphia says its sources say that 13 people were killed in this fire. two people are in critically condition. now, this fire happened in the fairmount neighborhood of philadelphia. that s close to the philadelphia art museum. we don t know what the cause is. you can see there that there are fire trucks on the scene on north 23rd street, on the street where this fire took place. but it appears that this fire happened in a three-story row house, started on the second floor, at least that was the heart of this fire. and at this hour, we are waiting official confirmation that 13 people died and two were critically injured. jose? what a tragedy.
do you know of anything like that? no. reporter: why do you think the loss of life was so dramatic, so quick? you get here and you find them. what s going on? there was heavy fire, and what would be for them the kitchen area, the front of the second floor. and then it was an open stairwell to the third floor. so the only thing that was slowing that fire down from moving was nothing slowing that fire down from moving. that fire was moving. reporter: it s feeding on contents. it s feeding on it s feeding on oxygen and fire. reporter: do you consider the space as a procedure to look at this or how do you label this right now? it s under investigation from the fire marshall s office right now. it s not necessarily considered suspicious, but we have our hands on deck because of the magnitude of this fire.
me, he is investigating the root causes of and organizers of january 6th. some key words to look out for, frank figliuzzi and garrett haake, thank you very much for being with me today. by the way, tomorrow, join msnbc for insurrection in america, democracy in peril. special coverage beginning tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. eastern, 1:00 p.m. pacific. we re following breaking news from philadelphia this morning, where police sources tell nbc station wcau that at least 13 people were killed early this morning when a fire tore through a row home that had been converted to apartments. the philadelphia fire department is expected to hold a news conference shortly. with me now is nbc news correspondent, anne thompson. anne, good morning. what do we know about what happened in philadelphia this morning? good morning, jose. the philadelphia fire department says that this fire happened just after 6:30 a.m.