{"id":70986,"date":"2025-12-26T16:23:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T16:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/70986\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T16:23:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T16:23:07","slug":"philadelphia-familys-home-unexpectedly-bursts-into-flames-on-christmas-eve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/70986\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia family&#8217;s home unexpectedly bursts into flames on Christmas Eve"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/cwbc22ydl5wyerrn.jpg\" alt=\"North Philly family's home goes up in flames on Christmas Eve\" class=\"sr-only\" data-v-4292be72=\"\"\/>    <\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">PHILADELPHIA &#8211; Just days ago, FOX 29 was at the Sellecchia household in Northeast <a href=\"https:\/\/fox29.com\/tag\/us\/pa\/philadelphia\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Philadelphia<\/a> to showcase their holiday spirit as part of Bob Kelly\u2019s &#8220;A Very Kelly Christmas&#8221; segment.<\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">But now, the side exterior is charred and an &#8220;unsafe structure notice&#8221; is on the window \u2014 this after a Christmas Eve fire.<\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">&#8220;I was devastated to see my house go up in flames,&#8221; said homeowner Judy Sellecchia. &#8220;That\u2019s something that you just can never get out of your mind. You can\u2019t, you can\u2019t.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"WTXF\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">What we know:<\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">Sellecchia said the fire originated in the kitchen, but they still don\u2019t know how, since they said the oven wasn\u2019t on. Judy was at work down the street, while her husband was the only one home.<\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">There was no loss of human life, but the homeowners did lose one of their two cats. Judy&#8217;s thankful it didn\u2019t transpire during the overnight hours.<\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">SUGGESTED: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox29.com\/news\/1-killed-delaware-county-apartment-fire-dozens-residents-displaced\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">1 killed in Delaware County apartment fire: Dozens of residents displaced<\/a><\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">&#8220;It started in the back of the house, and that\u2019s where we sleep in the back,&#8221; she said. &#8220;So it could\u2019ve been way worse.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">Husband Freddy said he heard three bangs prior to the fire.<\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">&#8220;I burned my hand, burned both my ears, my face,&#8221; said homeowner Freddy Sellecchia. &#8220;It just didn\u2019t want to go out.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">Daughter Jennifer Terpoilli lives down the block and says a good 10 minutes had gone by before anyone got through to the emergency line.<\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">&#8220;If they would\u2019ve answered the first 15 times I called or however many times everybody else called, it probably wouldn\u2019t have spread that far,&#8221; said Terpoilli.<\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">Once emergency crews got to the scene, Judy described them as &#8220;excellent.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">Terpoilli reached out to Sen. Joe Picozzi over the situation and hopes to hear back.<\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">&#8220;Just said like, you know, point me in the direction I need to go to figure out why this is happening,&#8221; said Terpoilli. &#8220;I mean, somebody could\u2019ve died.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"WTXF\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">What you can do:<\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">The homeowners have been told they can return in six to nine months, but in the meantime, their daughter has set up a GoFundMe. The link to help out can be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gofundme.com\/f\/a53uc-rebuilding-after-christmas-eve-fire\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">found here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"WTXF\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">What&#8217;s next:<\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">&#8220;I\u2019m coming back to this house, I\u2019m coming back. I\u2019m going to rebuild, yes I am. I\u2019m not leaving,&#8221; said Judy.<\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">Officer Tanya Little with the Philadelphia Police Department Office of Public Affairs told FOX 29 that the department &#8220;[takes] concerns about emergency response very seriously and will look into this matter.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"group-source-paragraph\" data-v-4fbf7207=\"\">The Source: Information in this story is from interviews with the Sellecchia family and the Philadelphia Police Department.<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox29.com\/tag\/us\/pa\/philadelphia\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-6c8e215c=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Philadelphia<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA &#8211; Just days ago, FOX 29 was at the Sellecchia household in Northeast Philadelphia to showcase their&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[139,539,69,71,70,593],"class_list":{"0":"post-70986","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-pa","10":"tag-philadelphia","11":"tag-philadelphia-headlines","12":"tag-philadelphia-news","13":"tag-us"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}