6-year-old girl killed in Staten Island house fire
NEW YORK -- A fire took the life of a little girl on Staten Island on Monday.
Cell phone video captured smoke shooting out of the home on Brookside Avenue, still decorated for Christmas.
Neighbor Paul Michielli saw it from his house down the street and rushed over.
"It really happened really quick. By the time I got down to the end of the block, I saw really dark smoke billowing out of one of the windows, and firefighters were already breaking the windows and trying to enter the premises," he said.
The FDNY was called to the home after 5:30 p.m. and says it took less than an hour to get the fire under control.
Michielli says he saw firefighters carry a child from the second floor.
"I saw the firefighter coming down the ladder and carrying her ... She was young enough for one firefighter to carry her out," he said.
Police say the 6-year-old girl was taken to Richmond University Medical Center but didn't survive.
Neighbors we spoke with were hoping and praying she would be OK, describing how heartbreaking it was seeing the family outside.
"There was one little boy -- he had no shoes on, he was holding his dog ... The kids were hysterical crying. Oh my God, it's so sad," neighbor Gianna Michielli said. "My mom grew up in the house that we live in, and I know [a resident of the Brookside Avenue home] grew up in that house, too ... Everyone knows everyone, so my mom was hysterical over this."
The fire marshal was in and out of the home Monday night, appearing to focus on the second floor, working to figure out what caused the fire.
"It's a traumatizing thing to happen, especially the first day of the year, oh my God," Gianna Michielli said.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
Police have not yet released the name of the little girl.
Neighbors we spoke with, some off-camera, say the people who lived in the home are a wonderful family and well-known in the community.