DEATHTRAP
3 kids among 5 killed in Qns. blaze
Five members of one f a mi l y we r e killed yesterday when a f ire tore through their Queens Village home. An inconsolable Dajuana Green (left) lost her 9-year-old son, Rashawn (top), and 2-year-old grandson, Chayce (above), two of the three children who perished.
Five people, including three children, were killed Sunday when they became trapped in a burning Queens home as relatives and neighbors screamed helplessly from the street, “Get the kids! There’s kids inside!”
“My babies! My babies!’’ sobbed one woman who neighbors said was crying out for her 2-year-old and 9-year-old relatives lost in the fire.
Maurice Matthews jumped from a second-floor window at the Queens Village home to escape the shooting flames and thick smoke, according to sources.
Before leaping, the 46-year-old man stood on the porch roof, shouting, “That’s my grandson!”
The victims were 2-year-old Chayce Green, 9-year-old Rashawn Matthews, 14-year-old Jaden Foxworth, 20-year-old Destiny Vickers and an unidentified 45-year-old man, according to police sources.
Rashawn was Chayce Green’s uncle, and Foxworth and Vickers were sisters, friends and neighbors told The Post.
Vickers was the goddaughter of Dajuana Green — Rashawn’s mother and Chayce’s grandmother — according to a Facebook post that Green made in January.
At a press conference near the two-story house Sunday evening, Mayor de Blasio said all the victims were related, but did not explain how.
“This is a devastation of a family you rarely see, but it has happened here in Queens Village today,” de Blasio said.
“We don’t have all the answers that we want to have about what happened here. We do know five lives have been lost, including some young children.
“And our hearts go out to this family, and I’m asking all New Yorkers to keep this family in your prayers.”
It was the city’s largest death toll from a single fire in two years, he said.
The blaze may have started when a car parked in an alley between two houses caught fire, according to police sources.
Flames erupted at about 2:36 p.m. at the home on 208th Street near 112th Avenue, and spread to an unoccupied adjacent building.
Lloyd Taylor, who lived in the home’s basement, said he smelled smoke and ran outside, and by the time he saw there were people still inside, it was too late.
“I ran out the door,” said Taylor, 31. “I just heard a commotion. And it wasn’t a regular commotion, it was kids in pain.
“All I could think about was the kids. But there was no way for anybody to get back in there.”
Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said FDNY crews arrived at the scene in four minutes to find “a house completely consumed by fire.”
He could not say whether the house — which was built in 1920 and was all wood — had smoke detectors.
The 2-year-old and another child were trapped in the attic, according to Nigro.
“For our firefighters, it’s a superhuman task to reach [the attic] in that condition,” he said.
Video shows a firefighter carrying a limp child from the ruins and past his colleagues, some of whom didn’t realize it was a person because the body was so badly burned.
They became visibly shaken when they realized that it was a child.
“It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” said a neighbor, Foster McPhee, 67.
“The guy who was carrying the baby out, you could just see the stress on his face. I’m just emotional about it because I’m a grandfather and I have kids, too.”
The fallen were fun-loving and committed to their community, according to those who knew them.
Rashawn was a budding vocalist who lent his voice to the choir at Tabernacle Community CME Church in St. Albans, according to Shemeka Headen, daughter of the congregation’s pastor.
“He was a happy boy,” said Headen. “He was at first nervous when he started singing, but he blossomed. He was great at Sunday school.”
And Destiny Vickers was a caregiver, who watched over her younger family members.
“Destiny enjoyed playing with the little kids, the babies,” Headen said.
Jada Foxworth was a cheerleader at The Young Women’s Leadership School of Queens in Jamaica who enjoyed sharing style tips and dancing videos on Facebook.
It was unclear who was looking after the children, but onlookers seemed to lay the blame on Matthews, the man who jumped to safety.
“Where was you? Where the f- -k was you?” a man in the crowd appeared to scream at him.
A law-enforcement official can be heard on the video saying, “We got a couple people fighting.”
Matthews was seen being led away in cuffs, but sources said neither he nor anyone else was arrested.
De Blasio said, “The loss was horrendous, but thank God there were no serious injuries to the FDNY.”
He noted the Bravest’s loss Thursday of firefighter William Tolley, who fell to his death after battling a Queens fire.
Nigro added, “We know that when we lose one of our own, the community mourns with us, and today, the Fire Department mourns with this community at the loss of five people in this home.”