The fire shot up the back of the house as soon as Rosheemah Lester saw the flames.
“It started at the windowsill,” she said. “It started growing very quickly.”
Lester’s house is in the 500 block of East 27th Street in Erie. Her back porch faces the back of the house at 535½ E. 26th St. ― the house where the fire broke out on March 29 and claimed the lives of three young children, the last of whom died on April 3.
A fire burned through the back of the upstairs apartment at 535½ E. 26th St. in Erie on March 29, leaving three children dead.
Lester, 55, called 911 when the blaze erupted in the kitchen of the house’s upstairs apartment shortly before 4:30 p.m. on March 29. Lester’s 7-year-old granddaughter was outside and spotted the fire. The granddaughter and her 9-year-old brother yelled to Lester. She looked outside, grabbed a phone and called 911 at 4:24 p.m.
‘I felt so overwhelmed,’ neighbor says
The images and sounds continue to haunt Lester.
Lester knew young children lived in the two-unit apartment house. The apartment had working fire detectors, and Lester heard them beep. She saw something move in a window that the blaze was destroying.
“The fire was horrible,” Lester said. “My heart has sunk since this happened.”
“I felt so overwhelmed.”
Mom was seen running to apartment during fire
A little more than a week after the blaze, Lester, 55, continues to replay the scene and mourns the loss of the three children.
The three are Tobias Huff, 5, and Da’liyla Huff, 3, who were pronounced dead at UPMC Hamot the day of the fire, and their 5-month-old sister, whom firefighters rescued and who was flown to UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. She died on April 3, and her name was not immediately released.
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No adults were in the apartment during the fire, according to a search warrant Erie police swore out in the ongoing criminal probe. The Erie Bureau of Fire ruled the fire accidental but have been unable to pinpoint a cause.
The possible charges under investigation include endangering the welfare of a child, according to the search warrant. Police have been conducting interviews and reviewing surveillance video. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is also involved.
Police cordoned off the front of 535½ E. 26th St. in Erie after a deadly fire burned through the upstairs apartment on March 29. Three children who were home alone died.
Lester saw the mother return to the house during the fire. She said the woman ran up to the house, distraught.
“You could tell she knew that the worst was going to happen,” Lester said. “That is the hardest part.”
Looking back on fire that left children ‘with God’
Lester has another thought as she contemplates the fire: “I wish I could have done more,” she said.
The fire had all but engulfed the apartment by the time Lester saw the blaze. Firefighters arrived at the scene within minutes and faced what firefighters described as “extremely challenging conditions.”
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Firefighters also said a neighbor who lives on East 27th Street spotted the fire and ran through backyards to reach the house. The neighbor kicked in the front door and tried to go upstairs. The smoke and fire prevented him from getting into the apartment.
Lester and her other neighbors would have been unable to rescue the children had they been able to even get near the apartment.
“That’s all I could do,” she said of calling 911.
When she stands on her back porch, Lester can only be reminded of the fire. The back of the house at 535½ E. 26th St is charred and burned out up through the attic. The window in which Lester saw something move is gone.
“Those children are with God,” Lester said. “They are resting in peace with God.”
Contact Ed Palattella at epalattella@usatodayco.com or 814-870-1813.
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Neighbor who called 911 in Erie fire ‘overwhelmed’ by deadly tragedy