NY Times

A 2-year-old boy playing with matches ignited a mattress in his family's apartment in Brooklyn late Friday night, starting a deadly blaze that killed his mother and left him hospitalized with severe burns, the authorities said yesterday.

Four others who lived in the sixth-floor apartment were taken to hospitals, including a teenager who climbed out a window, began scaling down the side of the building using cable television wires and fell about three stories to the ground, injuring his foot, the authorities said.

The 2-year-old boy, Kyle Stephen, lived with his mother, Sandra Stephen, 45, in a two-bedroom apartment at 1809 Albemarle Road, a few blocks south of Prospect Park. They shared the apartment - the living room of which had been converted into a bedroom - with several family members and others, neighbors and a relative said.

About 11:30 p.m. Friday, the boy started a fire on a mattress and two adults inside tried to drag the mattress out to the hallway, but it became stuck in the foyer, a Fire Department spokesman said. The mattress ignited the entrance to the apartment, trapping some of the occupants inside and forcing the boy's 14-year-old brother to propel himself down the cable wires.

Neighbors spoke of a horrific scene as firefighters rushed in: children's screams for help, singed bodies and fast-moving flames.

"One lady, her clothes were burnt off her body," said Cheryl Dosreis, 54, who lives on the third floor. "You could see her skin and blood."

Kyle was found in a bathtub by firefighters and was taken to Staten Island University Hospital, where he was in critical condition last night. The police said Ms. Stephen died at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan. A hospital spokeswoman, however, said no one with that name had been a patient there.

Kyle's 14-year-old brother, identified by a cousin as Kimali, suffered a foot injury after lowering himself out the window and falling to the ground. He was in stable condition yesterday at Maimonides Medical Center.

An unidentified 45-year-old woman and 12-year-old boy were taken to Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx. The woman was transported in critical condition and the boy in stable condition, the police said. A hospital spokesman said last night he could not discuss the conditions of unidentified patients.

An unidentified 45-year-old man was treated at Kings County Hospital Center and released.

Donnette Miller, 35, Ms. Stephen's former sister-in-law, said Ms. Stephen was a native of Jamaica who worked as a phlebotomist, someone trained to draw blood. She was a quiet, devoted mother who was planning to move to Baltimore yesterday and had been packing in recent days, Ms. Miller said.

Ms. Miller and neighbors said Ms. Stephen's father had been helping with the move. Magni Babel, 38, a nurse's aide who lives next door, said Ms. Stephen's father was not in the apartment at the time of the fire. "He saw them take her out," Ms. Babel said. "She was badly burned and unconscious."

Onlookers called Kimali a brave young man. After he fell from the wires, he landed on a small grassy area between the sidewalk and the building, narrowly missing a wrought-iron fence. "He just laid there," said Daniel Laude, 30, who lives nearby. "He was shaking. Someone handed him a blanket."

It took 75 firefighters to get the blaze under control. The paint on the door of the apartment, Apartment D62, had peeled off, and near the door mattress springs were on the kitchen floor. The police said the fire was not considered suspicious.

Less than an hour after firefighters responded to the Brooklyn fire, a man in the Bronx who had been smoking in bed was killed when flames broke out in his apartment at 1105 Elder Avenue.

The man, Julius Marton, 60, the apartment's sole occupant, was pronounced dead at the scene. He had been smoking in bed, and died as a result of burns in the blaze, a Fire Department spokesman said.

Neighbors described Mr. Marton as an emaciated, troubled man who lived in filthy conditions. He was frequently seen in the neighborhood walking his dog. "He said that was his baby," said Shanell Evans, 27, a student at the College of New Rochelle, who lives across the hall. Neighbors said the dog survived.

She said she saw Mr. Marton with cigarette burns on his clothes, and other neighbors had complained to the police about the smell coming from the apartment. "Everyone thought he was crazy, but there was nothing wrong with that man," Ms. Evans said. "He was just lonely."