10-Year-Old Girl Among 8 Hurt In Queens House Fire
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Eight people were rushed to the hospital early Friday morning, including a 10-year-old girl and four firefighters after a fire ripped through a home in Queens.
All of them are still recovering as investigators try to determine the cause.
CBS2's John Dias has more on how neighbors tried to help out.
Crews were called around midnight to 64 35th Avenue in Woodside.
BREAKING: Fire engulfs a #Queens home overnight, sending 4 to the hospital including a 10yo girl. Injuries are life threatening. Latest on @CBSNewYork pic.twitter.com/Kb3rE6mfMD
— John Dias (@JohnBDias) July 24, 2020
Standing next to a singed home, fire marshals discussed their investigation into what could have caused the massive fire that destroyed a two story home, leaving behind nearly just the bones.
"The windows look melted into nothing. That's pretty bad. You lose everything like that. That's a horrible tragedy for the people that lived there," one person said.
Chaotic cell phone video shows flames shooting out of the home on 35th Avenue around midnight, fully engulfing the first floor.
"I hear people screaming. They were saying, 'Fire! Fire!' And I start smelling smoke," said Jabar Saidi.
He was nearly 100 yards away, in a deli.
"The fire was crazy, and they were saying there was people inside the house that were trapped," Saidi said.
The frantic screams were also heard by Khair Khan.
"We took a hammer and we tried to maybe take those people out. We came here, there was a big blaze," Khan said.
Khan says the flames were too big to pull off a heroic rescue. He had to wait for firefighters.
"They were screaming for help, we couldn't do anything. We couldn't get near it because of the big blaze, and we told those people to get upstairs. That's all we could do. So they ran upstairs," he said.
Authorities say first responders pulled four people from the burning home and rushed them to area hospitals with life-threatening injuries. Among those victims is a 10-year-old girl and a 25-year-old woman. Two of those hurt are still in serious condition.
Putting out the stubborn fire was no easy task.
CBS2's John Dias was told it took firefighters two hours to extinguish the blaze. A total of 12 units made up of 60 firefighters reported to the scene. Four sustained injuries, but are expected to be OK.
No other information has been made available yet about the relation of the four victims living in the home.