Four children were among five people killed Sunday when they became trapped in a burning Queens home as stricken relatives and neighbors screamed helplessly from the street, “Get the kids! There’s kids inside!”
“My babies! My babies!’’ sobbed a woman who neighbors said lost her 2-year-old son and 10-year-old brother in the inferno.
One man was forced to jump from a second-floor window to escape the shooting flames and thick black smoke, fire officials said, describing him as 46 years old.
Before he leaped, he stood on the porch roof, frantically shouting, “That’s my grandson!’’
The victims were 2-year-old Chayce Lipford, 10-year-old Rashawn Matthews, 16-year-old Jada Foxworth, 20-year-old Destiny Dones, and 17-year-old Melody Edwards, police said.
Rashawn was Chayce’s uncle, and Jada and Destiny were sisters, friends and neighbors told The Post.
“This is a devastation of a family you rarely see, but it has happened here in Queens Village today,” Mayor de Blasio said at a press conference near the house Sunday evening.
“We don’t have all the answers that we want to have about what happened here,’’ the mayor said. “We do know five lives have been lost including some young children. And our hearts go out to this family, and I’m asking all New Yorkers to keep this family in your prayers.”
It was the city’s largest death toll from a fire in the past two years, he said.
Sunday’s blaze may have started when a car parked in an alley between two houses caught fire, police sources said.
The flames broke out at about 2:36 p.m. at a two-story home at 112th Avenue and 208th Street and eventually jumped to an adjacent building, which was unoccupied at the time, officials said.
Lloyd Taylor, who lived in the basement of the home that burned, said he smelled smoke and ran outside, but by the time he realized there were still people inside, it was too late to go back.
“I ran out the door. Then when I looked back, there was no way of getting back in,” said Taylor, 31.
“I just heard a commotion. And it wasn’t a regular commotion, it was kids in pain. All I could think about was the kids. But there was no way for anybody to get back in there.”
Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said, “Members responded in 4 minutes, and they were met by a house completely consumed by fire.” he could not say whether there were smoke detectors in the home.
Two-year-old Chayce and another child were trapped in the attic, he said.
“For our firefighters, it’s a superhuman task to reach [the attic] in that condition,” he said.
Stark video shows a firefighter carrying a limp child from the smoldering wreckage.
He cradled the dead child’s burned, soot-covered body past other Bravest, some of whom don’t realize at first that it is a young person because it is so charred. They become visibly shaken when they realize it is a person.
“It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life, and I’ve seen a lot things,” said resident Foster McPhee, 67.
“The baby was burned literally to a crisp. The guy who was carrying the baby out, you could just see the stress on his face. I’m just emotional about it because I’m a grandfather and I have kids, too.”
It is unclear who was supposed to be watching the kids, but onlookers seemed to lay blame on an older man at the scene.
“Where was you? Where the f–k was you? Where the f–k was you?’’ a man in the crowd appears to be screaming at an older guy walking from the scene, according to video.
A law-enforcement official then can be heard, “We got a couple people fighting,’’ and one man was soon led away in cuffs, video shows.
There were no arrests, according to police.
Neighbor Dorothy Murray said she baby-sat for the little victim, 2, who was caught on footage being carried out.
The boy lived with his mother, according to Murray.
The house was made of wood, which sped up the conflagration, Nigro said.
“These homes were built 97 years ago. They are wood frame homes, and they burn rapidly,” he said.
“The loss was horrendous, but thank God there were no serious injuries to the FDNY,” de Blasio said, noting that the Fire Department is still reeling from the death of Bravest William Tolley, who fell five stories to his death while battling a Queens blaze Thursday.
Nigro added, “We know that when we lose one of our own the community mourns with us, and today the Fire Department mourns with this community at the loss of five people in this home.”
Additional reporting by Daniel Prendergast, Larry Celona and Kevin Sheehan