Fire kills 5 in New York, including 3 children
House burnt rapidly and was already engulfed in flames by the time firefighters arrived
Investigators are scouring for clues about what sparked a deadly, fast-moving house fire that killed five people, including three children, on a sunny spring afternoon.
The fire broke out Sunday afternoon, on a street full of single-family homes in the middle class neighbourhood of Queens Village, a neighbourhood near Belmont Park, which hosts the Belmont Stakes, the final leg in horse racing’s Triple Crown.
Television news footage showed flames chewing through the roof of the twostorey home and roaring in upstairs rooms of the house as smoke poured from it.
“It was a fire that moved very, very quickly, and the loss was horrendous,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio.
“This is the devastation of a family,” he said, adding: “There’s a lot we need to know about what happened here.”
There was no immediate theory on what started the blaze. A burnt-out car was found behind one of the homes, and witnesses reported hearing loud booms, but Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said it didn’t appear there was an explosion.
Nigro said a passing motorist saw someone tumble from a window as smoke billowed, and called the fire department.
The victim, a roughly 46-year-old man, fell onto a porch roof and then a lawn and survived, Nigro said.
Too late to save them
The wood-frame home burnt rapidly and was already engulfed in flames by the time firefighters arrived. They struggled to reach some of the victims who were as high up as the attic, a “super-human” task for firefighters to reach people in a home engulfed by such a massive fire, Nigro said. They managed to bring a 2-year-old and someone else from the attic where they had been trapped, he said. But they were too late to save them.
Officials were still trying to piece together who the victims were, and how or if they were all related. Police said the victims ranged in age from 2 to 20. They said the man who escaped the fire is in the hospital and is expected to survive.
A neighbouring home also caught fire and was badly damaged, but no one was inside at the time. Four firefighters suffered minor injuries. No other people were injured.
Neighbour Dorothy Murray told reporters that when she looked out her door and saw the fire, “I could have fainted.”
“The fire was so intense — there’s no way in the world nobody could go over there to save nobody,” said Murray.
She said she babysat sometimes for one of the children — “cute little fellow,” she said. “He’s adorable.”