Community Mourns Two Children Killed In Fire

BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- For the second time in less than a week, two children are killed in a Baltimore house fire. It happened early Saturday morning in Southwest Baltimore.

Now, the community surrounding this most recent tragedy is banding together.

Neighbors and friends gather to pray for a 10-year-old boy and his 1-year-old sister killed in a house fire on Dorton Court.

The 10-year-old boy has been identified as Kamari Ferrell and the 1-year-old girl as Tylynn McDuffie.

"It really crushed my heart when this happened," says neighbor Nicole Winchester.

The tragedy unfolded just before 2 a.m. Saturday morning. Firefighters have not yet been able to determine if smoke detectors in the home were working.

Neighbors say the kids' 27-year-old mother jumped out of a second-story window. The mother was able to escape with her four-year-old son, but two other children died in the home.

"It's devastating," Dr. Reverend Iris Farabee-Lewis says.

Neighbors and the church community, remember 10-year-old Kamari as an "awesome" kid.

"He loved to swim, skate, he got along with the other kids well," says Reverend Farabee-Lewis.

This is the second pair of siblings killed in Baltimore fires in just four days.

On Wednesday night, a 3-year-old and 9-month old died in a fire on Clinton Street in East Baltimore.

"People look at firefighters as being heroes, you know, but we are human beings. It is heartfelt for us and our hearts go out to the families that have lost these children," says Captain Roman Clark, Baltimore City Fire.

Two families and two communities are now coping with tragic loss, so close to the holidays.

"It's going to be so hurtful to not see him anymore and painful to know how his moms going through all this right now, trying to progress," says Winchester.

Community members tell WJZ they are making sure the mother and her surviving child have a roof over their head when they leave the hospital.

The mother who survived did sustain burns and a leg injury. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

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