On May 13, 1985, the Philadelphia police department began a confrontation with MOVE, a Black anarchist movement that was headquartered in a row house at 6221 Osage Avenue. Police attempts to serve arrest warrants on four MOVE members suspected to be in the building were met with violence. Police fired more than ten thousand rounds of ammunition into the address before a police helicopter dropped two bombs on the house, causing it to catch fire. The fire then spread to adjacent houses. According to officials, police refused to let firefighters approach the buildings for fear that surviving MOVE members might shoot at them. A total of sixty-five buildings burned before the fire was finally extinguished.