Firefighters were called about 3:15 a.m. to the houses, which are separated by a third house on the first block of South 24th Street, said Ralph Jones, assistant chief fire marshal.
All three houses were occupied during the firebombings, but no residents were injured. A firefighter sustained a minor sprain and was expected to return to work by the weekend, Jones said.
"It appears someone threw incendiary devices through the back kitchen windows of both houses," he said. "The middle house wasn't even touched."
Jimmy Cortes, 35, was sleeping in an upstairs bedroom when he woke up to the sound of his 13-year-old daughter, Evelyn, screaming, "Fire!"
"Its a good thing she had fallen asleep on the living room couch last night, or we'd all be dead," Cortes said. As he spoke, his girlfriend, Ida Figueroa, rehung family photographs and pictures on the smoke-stained living room walls, and neighbors mopped the floor.
Cortes said he was certain his house had been targeted by mistake. "It's drug-related, I'm sure," he said. "I think my house was a mistake. There's no reason anybody would burn my house."
As three votive candles burned in glass containers on a windowsill, Cortes counted his blessings.
Though his motorcycle was destroyed, the kitchen charred beyond recognition, and all the food gone, he said he felt lucky. His girlfriend and their five children - two daughters and three sons, all younger than 16 - had escaped with his mixed pit bulls, Tupac and Swat. All are staying elsewhere while their house is cleaned up.
"But the house two doors down, she lost everything," Cortes said. "And the woman there had only lived in it for two months."
Investigators from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms yesterday sifted through the remains of the rowhouses. A dog from the Camden County Fire Marshal's Office found evidence of an accelerant used to fuel the blazes.
Both fires are being investigated.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Camden County Prosecutor's Office at 856-225-8400 or Camden detectives at 856-757-7420. All information will be kept confidential.
