What to Know
- Five people died, including four children, in New York City's deadliest fire since 2015, when seven kids were killed
- The blaze broke out Sunday afternoon in Queens Village; by the time the flames were out, only a charred structure remained
- There is no immediate theory as to what sparked the blaze, but investigators are searching for clues
Investigators are scouring evidence for clues about what sparked a fast-moving house fire that killed five people, including a 2-year-old and three others under the age of 18, on a sunny spring afternoon in Queens.
The fire broke out Sunday afternoon on a street full of single-family homes in the Queens Village. Video shows flames chewing through the roof of the two-story home and roaring in upstairs parts of the house as smoke seeps from it.
"It was a fire that moved very, very quickly, and the loss was horrendous," said Mayor de Blasio. "This is the devastation of a family."
"Our job now is to get down to the bottom of what happened and do everything we can to make sure that no family ever suffers like this again," he added in a tweet.
There was no immediate theory as to what may have started the blaze, but fire marshals are investigating. A burned-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 had been an explosion.
Nigro said a passing motorist saw someone tumble from a window as smoke billowed, and that motorist called the fire department. The victim, a man in his 40s, fell onto a porch roof, then tumbled onto a lawn and survived, Nigro said.
The wood-frame home burned 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 child and someone else from the attic where they had been trapped, he said. But they were too late to save them.
Officials say the victims of the fire were two boys, a 2-year-old and a 10-year-old; two girls, a 16-year-old and a 17-year-old; and a 20-year-old woman. Their names had not been released as of Monday morning. A relative of the victims said the two teenage girls were sisters.
"They were all like, inseparable," relative Sheener Bailey Briggs said. "So just, pray for the family. It's really hard. But they're being strong right now. Just pray."
Police said it will "take some time," to determine the extent of the relationships among the victims.
Authorities say the one man who escaped the deadly inferno is expected to recover. He is being treated at a local hospital, officials said. Briggs said he is the father of the 2-year-old child who died.
A neighboring 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.
Neighbor Dorothy Murray told reporters that when she looked out her door and saw the fire, "I could have fainted."
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"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."
First-responders carried a limp child from the wreckage.
"At first I was like everybody else taking pictures of the fire," neighbor Foster McPhee said. "Then when he started bringing out the people, I just had to turn it off and walk away from it for a minute and get myself together and then come back. It's just sad."
Sunday's fire was the deadliest in the nation's biggest city since March 2015, when a house fire in Brooklyn touched off by a hot plate killed seven children, all siblings.
By nightfall Sunday, neighbors who had been standing in horror outside had gone back into their homes, and first-responders had blocked off the street as they continued to investigate.
Brenda Lewis, who lives six houses down the fire scene, said she was still in shock. With her iPad in hand, she stood in the evening cold, showing the neighbors the videos she took earlier in the day. "It was something," she said.
Firefighters tried to save the family even as the rescuers mourned one of their own, firefighter William Tolley, who died last week after falling five stories while battling a blaze in the same borough.
The Red Cross responded and provided emergency housing to one adult. They planned to return Monday to offer additional assistance if needed.
