A candle may have sparked a two-alarm blaze in Queens that sent adults and children racing out of a burning building into the Arctic cold Saturday morning.
No one was seriously injured, but some residents of the two-story brick house at 24-18 Deerfield Road in Far Rockaway, which houses four apartments, went to the hospital for smoke inhalation.
Noel Harvey, 28, who works for the city and lives in the building, was outside talking when he looked up and saw smoke pouring from two windows in the rear first-floor apartment.
“I heard [a] child screaming. I couldn’t hear what he was saying. I ran and busted the door down,” Harvey said.
The front door leads to a living-room couch, which was engulfed.
“My family is fine, but I lost everything,” said Tia Hicks, a school safety agent, who lived with her 7-year-old son and 20-year-old daughter in the now-gutted apartment. The Red Cross is offering the family help. Hicks said her family has arranged to stay at a hotel.
She did not discuss the cause of the blaze, but there was a suggestion from others that a candle may have fallen on the couch.
The fire was first reported at 9:04 a.m. and brought under control at 9:47 a.m., FDNY officials said, adding that the blaze was “under investigation.”


