(Reuters) -Investigators on Thursday said six members of a family were unaccounted for and feared dead in the charred ruins of a house in a Philadelphia suburb after the home was set ablaze by a suspect who shot and wounded two responding police officers.
The family, whose surname is Le, were residents of the house, according to Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer. Investigators also found the charred torso of one individual and have recovered a rifle, he said.
The incident began on Wednesday when police officers responded to a home in East Lansdowne, a suburb just west of Philadelphia, after receiving a call that an 11-year-old girl was shot, local officials said.
When police arrived, a suspect opened fire from inside the home, striking two officers, and set fire to the two-story, wood-frame home.
The fire burned too intensely for firefighters to enter as flames and smoke billowed out of the home, Stollsteimer told reporters on Wednesday.
The two wounded police officers were “doing very well” in the hospital, he said on Thursday, noting that one was wounded in the forearm and the other suffered a wound to his leg.
“We got the thumbs up from them,” said Stollsteimer, the chief prosecutor for the county, which has a population of about 575,000.
(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago; editing by Christina Fincher)