Four Children Die In Overnight NJ Fire

TEANECK, NJ (CBS) Tragedy in Teaneck, New Jersey, as four children die in an overnight fire.

Hours after firefighters responding to a report of smoke could find nothing wrong, a house erupted in flames early Tuesday morning, killing four children and critically injuring their mother.

Two other children, girls ages 14 and 7, were rescued by a neighbor who propped a ladder against the burning home. The children were being checked at a hospital.

The dead children, whose names were not immediately released, were boys ages 15, 6 and 4, and a 5-year-old girl, police Lt. Norman Levine said.

Fire Chief John Bauer said the fire department got a call from the house at 8:30 p.m. Monday reporting smoke in the basement of three-story brick Tudor.

“On our arrival, there was no smoke. We spent over a half-hour checking the house. We couldn’t find anything wrong with the house. We checked all the electrical devices,” Bauer said.

The family’s nanny was asleep on a couch on the first floor when she awoke to heavy smoke at about 1:45 a.m. Tuesday, Levine said.

“She woke up and yelled up to the mother. Apparently they couldn’t make it down the stairs. They tried to get out the
windows, but only a few of them made it,” Levine said.

The children’s father was not at home, he said. Broadcast reports said the couple was divorced.

The mother was trapped in a second-floor bathroom, where police and firefighters smashed a small window and pulled her to safety.

Phyllis Seidenfeld was listed in critical condition at St. Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, hospital spokeswoman Robin Lally said.

Once firefighters finished rescues and searches, it took about 30 minutes to put out the fire, Bauer said.

“It was a very fast-moving fire in the basement that created smoke and heat, and went up through the walls,” he said.

At least three smoke detectors inside the house were functioning properly, the fire chief said. He said the children appear to have died from smoke inhalation; autopsies were pending.

A neighbor, Betty Kay, said her daughter played with the family’s children on Friday afternoons so the mother could prepare for the Jewish Sabbath. “The kids were adorable, adorable playful kids. It was a very busy household. She was a very special woman,” Kay said.

“Everyone in the community is in tremendous shock and grief over this loss of life, all of us. We all can’t function. Everyone in the community is calling to see what they can do to help,” Kay said.

The Bergen County prosecutor’s arson investigation unit was at the home Tuesday morning, but authorities said they had not determined whether arson was the cause of the fire.

Bauer said investigators determined there was a problem with the home’s furnace, but said that was ruled out as the fire’s cause.