2 kids hurt in fire
Boy, 6, jumps as Bravest save 1-year-old
Two boys — a 1-year-old baby and a 6-year-old — were seriously injured Saturday when a massive fire erupted in their Brooklyn home and trapped them and their family on the second floor, firefighters said.
Cowering in a room filling with smoke, the 6-year-old boy and other family members leaped from the second floor of the burning E. 89th St. home in Canarsie to a rear yard, where they were found by firefighters responding to the 9:30 a.m. blaze.
But the baby was still inside, FDNY Chief Stephen Moro said.
“(The fire) had burned through a few of the steps, making it impossible to get to the second floor,” said Moro, commander for FDNY’s Division 15. “We needed to use portable ladders.”
A Ladder 174 firefighter climbed into a second floor window and after a brief search found the baby face down in his crib, officials said.
He quickly brought the little boy back to the window and handed him to a colleague.
“The firefighters had to get a ladder to save the little baby,” Isaiah Thomas, 49, who was visiting relatives on the block as the rescue unfolded, said. “I didn’t think he was gonna make it.”
The scene was total chaos, he said.
“People were screaming. I heard screams coming from the house,” Thomas said. “I smelled it first. Then there were fire flames everywhere. There was so much smoke.”
EMS rushed the boys to Brookdale University Medical Center, where they were listed in serious but stable condition Saturday afternoon.
Two 66-year-old women and a 23-year-old woman were taken to Kings County Hospital with minor injuries. Two firefighters who were slightly hurt as they battled the heavy blaze also suffered minor injuries, Moro said.
A family member who declined to give he name said that everyone was in stable condition and recovering in the hospital.
“Everyone’s going to be OK,” he said.
One wrinkle in the firefighters’ battle came when debris damaged a fire hose, causing a drop in water pressure while they sprayed the blaze, Moro said.
Firefighters had to back away from the fire and replace the hose before they could renew their fight against the flames.
The blaze started on the first floor and ripped through the entire two-story home, leaving nothing but a burnt-out husk, firefighters said. FDNY Fire Marshals were investigating the cause of the fire Saturday.
“The fire took off and went through all the voids in the building,” Moro said. “It gutted the first and second floor. There was a lot of debris, so we spent a lot of time searching, making sure everyone was accounted for.”
Because of its intensity and the way it quickly ate through the stairs, Marshals were investigating the possibility that the fire was intentionally set, an FDNY official with knowledge of the case said.
As firefighters fought the Canarsie blaze, a second fire broke out on the other side of Brooklyn at NYCHA’s Sumner Houses in Bedford-Stuyvesant, critically injuring an 85-year-old man and an 86-year-old woman, officials said.
Ivette Guzman, who lives next door to the burned-out apartment, said firefighters brought the ailing man into her home.
“They banged on my door and screamed ‘Open the door!’ ” Guzman recalled. “One of the firemen was dragging the guy into my apartment. They were doing chest compressions.”
“They needed a place to get out of the smoke,” Guzman said. “You couldn’t see anything. It was pitch black ... I was nervous because I thought he was dead, but now I know they needed a clear space without smoke to help him.”
“I thought he was dead. My son told me he was alive and they found a pulse on him. It was so scary.”
The fire in the fourth-floor apartment was put out in about 30 minutes, officials said. EMS rushed the elderly tenants to Kings County Hospital where they were in critical but stable condition. The cause of the blaze was under investigation Saturday.