A Bronx apartment fire that witnesses say spread with alarming speed left a 1-year-old boy dead and his 6-year-old twin siblings fighting for their lives Monday afternoon, the New York Post reports. The blaze broke out around 3:40pm on the second floor of a building on Bainbridge Avenue, officials said, forcing residents toward windows as thick smoke filled the halls. Firefighters pulled three children from the burning unit; the baby, described by a neighbor as "so dark with soot all over him," later died at a hospital. The twins, a boy and a girl, remain in critical condition, according to police. Three firefighters and two other civilians were also hospitalized with injuries described as minor. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
A neighbor tells ABC 7 a mother lived in the apartment where the fire started, and was home at the time along with at least four children but no other adults. The neighbor says she managed to escape with one of the children but couldn't get to the other three due to smoke. FDNY Assistant Chief Malcolm Moore said the flames raced up the stairwell and through the building's bulkhead, and suggested an open apartment door likely helped the fire spread—something he said his crews have seen repeatedly. When escaping a fire, he urged people, "Close the door, it is tough to do, it is hard to have to wrap your mind around doing that, but the minute you close that door, you give everyone else in the building an opportunity to flee, and you give yourself more time to flee by not letting the fire chase behind you." Firefighters had to go to the roof to help some residents out of open windows, CBS News reports.
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