A man and an 8-year-old boy died early Monday in a North Haven, Conn., house fire, authorities said.
The fire was reported at about 12:30 a.m. on George Street, the North Haven Fire Department said in a statement. Firefighters arrived to find the first two floors ablaze and neighbors swarming the house, some of them inside trying to rescue the occupants. But smoke and flames drove them back, they told the New Haven Register. North Haven Fire Chief Paul Januszewski called their actions “heroic.”
A mother, two of her school-aged children and an adult female made it out before firefighters got there, Januszewski said. One of the women was taken to the hospital for unspecified injuries, and a firefighter suffered a minor injury, he said. Everyone who lived in the house was related.
The 911 callers said a boy was trapped in a second-floor bedroom. Firefighters found an “elderly” man dead upstairs, officials told WTNH-TV, and the boy under a bed.
They got the child out through the window via a ground ladder and rushed him to the hospital, but he “tragically did not survive,” the fire department said in a statement. He was pronounced dead at 1:30 a.m.
The fire apparently started in a first-floor den, fire officials determined. The home had undergone several renovations, and the new layout slowed firefighters at first, WFSB-TV reported.
Those who escaped were being assisted by the American Red Cross, according to Patch. The Connecticut State Police Fire & Explosion Investigation Unit, North Haven Fire Department and North Haven Police Department are investigating the cause.
On Monday, flower bouquets appeared on a corner near the two-story, single-family house. It was still standing but a chunk of the roof was missing, and the outside walls were streaked with burn marks, according to the Register.
