NYC Blaze Kills 8 Children, 1 Adult
Authorities Believe Faulty Space Heater Or Overloaded Power Strip Caused Bronx Fire
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Play CBS Video Video Kids Tossed Out Window In Fire Eight children died in one of the worst fires to hit New York City in years. As Karen Brown reports, residents were forced to toss some children from windows a few floors up.
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Video Bloomberg On Deadly Bronx Fire CBS News RAW: In a news conference, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that the fire that killed at least nine in the Bronx may have resulted from a space heater or an overloaded power strip.
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Video 8 Children Die In Bronx Blaze An overnight fire in New York City claimed the lives of nine people, eight of them children. Authorities are calling it one of New York's deadliest blazes in recent memory. WCBS' Magee Hickey reports.
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Fire officials investigate the scene of a blaze that claimed the lives of 9 people, including 8 children, in a 4 story apartment building Thursday, March 8, 2007 in the Bronx borough of New York. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)
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In an image made from video, firefighters administer first aid to a fire victim in the Bronx, New York early Thursday March 8, 2007. (AP Photo/APTN)
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Police walk past the charred scene of a three-alarm blaze Thursday, March 8, 2007 in the Bronx borough of New York. A devastating fire swept through a three-story brick house, killing eight children and an adult and leaving several others seriously injured. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)
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Two women believed to be distraught family members comfort one another as they arrive at the scene of a blaze that claimed the lives of 9 people, including 8 children. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)
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People believed to be distraught family members arrive at the scene of a three-alarm blaze Thursday, March 8, 2007. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)
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Photo Essay Tragic Bronx Blaze Fire sweeps through three-story house, killing eight children and one adult.
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Interactive FIRE! A look at major fires and their victims, arson facts, and those who fight the flames.
The scene unfolded early Thursday during New York's deadliest fire in nearly two decades — a blaze that killed eight children and one adult, all African immigrants who shared a row house near Yankee Stadium.
The woman who tossed her children jumped from the building. Her fate and that of her children were not immediately known.
Investigators believe the fire started overnight with a faulty space heater or overloaded power strip, ignited a mattress in the basement and quickly raced up the stairs of the four-story structure. Most of the 22 residents — 17 of them children — were stranded on the upper floors as the blaze raged out of control.
Neighbor Edward Soto ran toward the fire, then stared in disbelief as an infant was tossed from the building.
"They were screaming and yelling, 'Please save my baby.' We ran, I jumped the gate and she started tossing babies out the window," Soto told CBS station WCBS-TV.
One woman threw at least three children from a third floor window to people below. Two were caught, and one hit a discarded bathtub on the sidewalk and died. The woman then jumped and witnesses say she broke her legs.
Firefighters worked for two hours in freezing predawn temperatures to bring the flames under control. The home had two smoke alarms, but neither had batteries.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission calls it a common problem, reports CBS News correspondent Randall Pinkston.
"While there are 90 million smoke alarms in homes across America, 16 million of them don't work, that's 20 percent," said the CPSC's Julie Vallese.
Police said there was no evidence of a crime.
The dead were found throughout the house, mostly on the upper floors, with babies still in their cribs. The victims included five children from one family, along with a wife and three other children from a second family.
Word of the fire spread grief across two continents, from the Bronx to villages in Mali, a West African country about twice the size of Texas and one of the poorest nations in the world.
"I don't know what I'm going to do," said a devastated Mamadou Soumara, a livery cab driver whose wife, son and 7-month-old twins died in the blaze. "I love her. I love my wife."
Soumara was driving through Harlem when he received a frantic cell phone call from his wife, Fatoumata. "She said, 'We have a fire,"' Soumara recalled. "She was screaming."
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
- Sorrow. Sorrow for the sad events here.
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- "8 DEAD" !?!?!?!
Maybe Queen Pelosi will pass a non-binding resolution urging Bush to get out of NYC."
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- Apparently the problem was they didn't call the Fire department until too late. Sounds like something to educate more people on - immigrants, resident aliens especially, since they won't have learned it in grade school, and may have lived places where a fire department was not present or effective.
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- How disgusting that with all the tax money we pour into the government that SOMETHING can't done to improve living conditions in the USA's poorer sections. I wonder where that Landlord lives and what he lives like.
What a heartbreaking story! - Reply to this comment
- This is so tragic,but also so needless too.If the fire dept has told us once,they have told us a million times now already,MAKE SURE YOU HAVE WORKING SMOKE DETECTORS IN YOUR HOME.I just don't understand why some people will not heed this lifesaving advice.
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- "8 DEAD !?!?!?!
Maybe Queen Pelosi will pass a non-binding resolution urging Bush to get out of NYC."
How can a story like this be turned into something political? It's a terrible tragedy, plain and simple. - Reply to this comment
- processor 2:
Get a life and a heart and SHUT THE F** UP! - Reply to this comment
- Check your smoke detectors often, KEEP BATTERIES IN THEM, have a smoke detector on each floor, also invest in a carbon monoxide detector for each floor.
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- Waht a horrible tragedy. There was a large file in my neighborhood the other night. I too live in the Bronx, and a huge two level apartment complex, along with a deli, and a travel agency, all went up in flames. And the owner of the deli just opened his business just a few months earlier. What a shame. I feel for the people who lost their lives. Although, police said the apartment building was practically empty. It was just a place for drug addicts and homeless people. They said at the time of the blaze, only a couple of people were taken to the hospital.
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- That is really sad that their lives were cut short like that, especially the kids and the adult the didn't make it. It is also sad that thy're houseless in the frezzing NewYork winter. To all the people that lost their lives in that fire rest in peace and to the survivers stay strong it will get better soon. God bless you.
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