De Blasio grieves for ‘unbelievable tragedy’ in Brooklyn fire

New York City’s mayor on Saturday called the Brooklyn fire that left seven ultra-Orthodox Jewish children dead and that critically injured their mother and teenage sister “an unbelievable tragedy.”

On a visit to the site of the blaze at the home of the Sassoon family, Bill de Blasio told CNN: “It’s so painful, it’s so difficult… Every New Yorker is feeling this pain right now.”

Three of the Sassoon girls — 16-year-old Eliane, 11-year-old Rivkah and 6-year-old Sara — and four boys — 12-year-old David, 10-year-old Yeshua, 8-year-old Moshe and 5-year-old Yaakob — were killed.

Their teenage sister, 14, along with the children’s mother, 45, survived by jumping from second-floor windows. Both were hospitalized after suffering burns and smoke inhalation.

Neighbors told the New York Times that the family had lived in Israel for many years, and had only returned to the US two years ago to be closer to their extended family.

The fatal fire started shortly after midnight while the children were asleep in five bedrooms in the rear of the home in Midwood, a leafy section of the borough of Brooklyn known for its low crime rate and large Orthodox Jewish population. Fire investigators believed a Shabbat hot plate left on a kitchen counter ignited the flames that raced up the stairs to the second floor, Nigro said.

More than 100 firefighters responded and brought the fire under control, Nigro said. After forcing their way in, the firefighters found the young victims motionless in their bedrooms.

“It’s difficult to find one child in a room during a search,” he said. “To find a houseful of seven children that can’t be revived…”

The names of the deceased were only released many hours after the incident. Nigro had explained earlier that the father was at a conference and officials had had trouble contacting him.

“This is the largest tragedy by fire that this city has had in seven years,” Nigro said. “It’s a tragedy for this family, it’s a tragedy for this community, it’s a tragedy for the city.”

“To find a house full of children that can’t be revived, I’m sure this will take its toll on our members for quite some time,” Nigro said, according to CNN.

Nigro said the mother and older sister may have survived due to their older age, as well as their location near the front of the house.

Fire investigators found a smoke detector in the basement of the home, but so far none have been found elsewhere in the house, Nigro said.

“There was no evidence of smoke detectors on either the first or the second floor that may have alerted this family to the fire,” he said.

Hot plates are a method for religious Jews to heat food on Shabbat without turning appliances on or off. Many families simply leave them on throughout the day so they are usable without violating prohibitions against doing work.

A man who lives next door to the burned home told the New York Times that the family was large and loving and that some of the kids had helped neighbors shovel snow on Friday.

“They’re very good people, the kids were always helping people,” he told the newspaper.

Neighbor Nate Weber told the New York Post that he saw children being wheeled away on stretchers.

“I just turned away. I didn’t even want to look,” he said.

Weber told the New York Daily News he heard the children’s mother yelling for someone to rescue her children after she jumped from a window.

“I heard a woman yelling: ‘My kids are in there. Get them out! Get them out!'” he told the Post.