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by TOM RAFTERY
A 2-year-old Staten Island boy who set his home ablaze by having a pretend birthday party with a real candle was rescued by a retired city firefighter last night, fire sources and neighbors said.
The child and his mother suffered burns in the raging two-alarm fire in Great Kills and were hospitalized at Staten Island University Hospital in serious condition.
The drama unfolded after the boy's 12-year-old sister gave him a lit candle to play with in their two-story Nahant St. home about 8:45 p.m., the sources said.
Soon, flames started racing through the second floor, sending the girl outside for help.
"Somebody call 911! My brother! My brother!" she screamed as she banged on neighbor Ellen Barron's door.
"She was crying, hysterical," said Barron, 57.
About a block away, the former firefighter John Rubino Jr., 41, was watching his son's baseball game at the Great Kills Little League field when he spotted the flames, neighbors said. He hopped a fence and ran toward the inferno.
When the boy's soot-covered mother got out and told neighbors her son was inside, Rubino didn't flinch. He charged through a side door and pulled the scared boy out from a rear bedroom, sources said.
"He did a great job. Definitely a hero," said neighbor Robert Columbia, 55, a retired NYPD detective. "He went right into the house."
Rubino gave the unconscious boy mouth-to-mouth resuscitation before paramedics arrived, witnesses said.
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