2 parents killed after fire erupts inside Plainfield, New Jersey apartment, officials say
A New Jersey community is in mourning after a fire erupted early Sunday morning, killing two parents, according to officials.
A wall of fire shot out of an apartment on West Front Street in Plainfield around 1 a.m.
Hugo Fernandez is the super at the building and says a couple and their two small children lived in the apartment where the fire broke out. He says he went door-to-door trying to get people out and saw the kids running out.
“They didn’t have no clothes, no shoes, it was freezing, I take off my jacket and give to them and ask ‘where is your mother, where is your father?'” Fernandez said.
Fernandez said at one point he did try to approach the top floor apartment, but he had to back out.
“Total nightmare inferno, black smoke, I couldn’t breathe – so dangerous,” he says.
At the time, Andres Perez was inside his apartment with his family and one-month-old boy. Perez also ran into the hallway banging on doors.
Perez was at a nearby Red Cross shelter and his son is staying elsewhere with relatives.
“We are living a real nightmare. We don’t know yet if we can retrieve out stuff. We have our documents and clothes and the babies’ clothes and milk and diapers,” he said.
Hours after the fire, some residents were allowed back in to see what was left.
Neighbors say the kids who lived in the unit and their parents were all taken to the hospital, where the parents later died.
The identity of the victims who died are not yet known.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
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