A 1-year-old boy was killed and a pair of 6-year-olds are in critical condition after being injured in an apartment fire in the Bronx on Monday afternoon.
Here’s what we know
Police responded to a 911 call for a fire on the second floor of the five-story building at 2609 Bainbridge Ave., between East 193rd and 194th streets, in the Fordham section at around 3:40 p.m.
Fire officials said the fast-moving flames spread from the second floor to the third and fourth floors as terrified tenants rushed to safety. At one point, firefighters had to perform a dramatic roof rescue to help people out the windows, CBS News New York’s Naveen Dhaliwal reported.
Witnesses watched in disbelief as large orange flames shot out of the second floor.
“I heard my fire alarm going off. I opened my room door down the hallway and I see smoke coming out,” one resident said.
Citizen 
EMS transported the three children — two boys and a girl — who had suffered smoke inhalation to St. Barnabas Hospital, where the 1-year-old was pronounced dead.
“I see they brought a little baby out. There was soot all over him. I couldn’t even see his face, and they put him on the ground and tried to pump back to life and then they ran and took him,” witness Valerie Ndogoula said. “The way he was covered with all the black stuff, I knew he wasn’t going to make it.”
Two adults and two firefighters suffered non-life-threatening injuries, fire officials said.
The FDNY said 21 units made up of 80 firefighters and EMS personnel responded to the fire, and at least 10 residents were displaced.
The cause of the fire is being investigated.
Fire may have spread through open doors, FDNY says
It is believed that the fire was exacerbated by residents in the building leaving doors open, which the FDNY has been telling the public not to doin the wake of deadly fires over the last few weeks in the Inwood section of Manhattan and the Belmont section of the Bronx.
“The fire rapidly extended up the stairs, through the bulkhead, the staircase on the top of the building, forcing people to the windows and other civilians to look for ways out,” said Malcolm Moore, FDNY assistant chief of special operations. “We’ve had several of these fire lately where the occupants of the fire apartment have fled the building and left the apartment door open. That appears to be the case here again, because of the heavy amount of fire that we found in the hole we on arrival.”
Moore reiterated the need for people to try to remember to close apartment doors during fires.
“If there’s one message that I could deliver across the spectrum to everyone here and out there watching, it is close the door. It is tough to do. It’s tough to wrap your mind around having to do that. But the minute you close that door, you give everyone else in the building an opportunity to flee. And you give yourself more time to flee by not allowing the fire to chase behind you,” Moore said.
