Queens Village Fire Kills 5, Including 3 Kids: Here Are Their Names

QUEENS VILLAGE, NY — A fire ripped through a two-story home on 208th Street near 112th Avenue in Queens Village near Jamaica on Sunday afternoon, killing five people, including three children, according city officials. The blaze also left one person injured.

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Among those killed, according to the NYPD, were 20-year-old woman Destiny Dones, 17-year-old girl Jada Foxworth, 16-year-old girl Jada Foxworth, 10-year-old boy Rashawn Matthews and 2-year-old boy Chayce Lipford.

An FDNY spokesman also said a man who tumbled out of a window was rushed to a nearby hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

The caused the blaze had not been revealed as of Monday afternoon. "What we do know is five lives lost, three of them children — an extraordinarily large toll for any fire," Mayor Bill de Blasio said during a Sunday evening media conference. "This is a very, very sad day for people here in Queens Village. I’ve talked to some of the folks on the block just now – incredibly difficult moment for people on this block to see a family literally destroyed before their very eyes. "

Firefighters rushed to the scene of the fire around 2:36 p.m. Sunday after a passing motorist saw fire on the home's first and second floors, Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said during Sunday's media conference. Smoke and flames were also visible to firefighters before they even arrived, he added.

"Our members arrived in just over four minutes and were met by a house completely consumed with fire," Nigro said. "They valiantly pushed in behind the hose lines. Unfortunately, they recovered all the people from there. It's a terrible, tragic loss."

The blaze ran through three alarms and burned for nearly two hours before being declared "under control" around 4:30 p.m., according to the FDNY. It was later upgraded to a four-alarm fire "for relief purposes," a spokesman said. No critical injuries had been reported among firefighters called out to battle the blaze, Nigro said.

“It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life, and I’ve seen a lot things,” neighbor Foster McPhee, 67, told the New York Post. “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.”

The fire was "the biggest loss of life in a fire in approximately two years, since the loss of the Sassoon family in Midwood, Brooklyn," de Blasio said. "And, there will be a full investigation by our fire marshals. There's a lot we need to know about what happened here especially the fact that this happened in the middle of an afternoon on a day when the weather was good."

Another big fire days earlier in Ridgewood, Queens, killed firefighter William Tolley, 42, and injured four civilians.

This is a developing story. Refresh the page for updates.

Photos courtesy of the FDNY. With reporting by Simone Wilson