2 Die In Hill Fire; Tenants Leap For Lives; Questions Raised On Smoke Alarms, Exits

(Updated) An investigation into a fire that killed two tenants in a crowded Hill rooming house appears bound to focus on whether the building met safety codes, including having working smoke alarms.

The mother of one of the tenants displaced by the fire reported that the house didn’t have them. She said that several rooms in the two-family house — which had 16 people living in it — had access to only one exit.

And a firefighter who along with colleagues battled heavy smoke and a narrow stairway to try to rescue two trapped tenants reported hearing no smoke alarms going off.

Those are the latest developments in the aftermath of a dramatic scene that unfolded early Sunday morning at the rooming house at 150 West St.

Besides killing two tenants, the blaze injured several other occupants as well as four firefighters. Tenants leapt out of windows and off roofs to escape death.

Fire Chief John Alston Jr. said Sunday night that the state medical examiner is working on identifying the two people who perished in the fire. ​“It grieves us” at the fire department that they hadn’t been able to make the identification at the scene in order to notify any loved ones sooner, he said.

Alston noted that many stories have been circulating about conditions at the house. Officials can’t yet confirm or deny those reports, he said.

“All of that will be borne out in an investigation jointly conducted by the state, New Haven police and the New Haven FD,” Alston said.

Sheila Ford, mother of burned-out tenant Hasson Hallett, told the Independent that she had recently prevailed on her son to move from the third floor to the first because she feared he would be trapped upstairs in case of an emergency. The house was chopped up into several dwelling units on each floor, with only one exit, she said. ​“I kept telling him, ​‘I’m so scared something will happen, because there’s only one way out.’ It’s a two-family house, and they chopped it up in a bunch of rooms.”

Her son eventually moved to the first floor. When the fire developed, she said, ​“drug users” in the neighborhood banged on her son’s first-floor window to let him know about the blaze so he could escape. She said she’d noticed missing smoke alarms in the building, as did other tenants in the building. (Hallett, who was put up in a local motel by the Red Cross Sunday evening, could not be reached for comment.)

Indeed, two men occupying a third-floor rear bedroom did find themselves trapped in the fire. ​“All of that will be borne out in an investigation jointly conducted by the state, New Haven police and the New Haven FD,” Alston said.

Fire Capt. Sean Reynolds, one of the firefighters who rushed up to try to rescue them, also said he noticed not hearing any alarms beeping amid the blaze.

“It Was Crazy”

Reynolds was among the firefighters from the Howard Avenue firehouse who immediately responded to the call when it came in at 3:20 a.m. They arrived at 3:24. Dozens more firefighters would follow.

They saw people jumping off roofs to escape the second-floor flames.

Next door, Luz DeLeon awakened to the noise, then found a woman outside her front door. ​“It was crazy. She had just thrown herself out the window.” Crews took the woman off in an ambulance to the hospital. A second man arrived, shivering; DeLeon gave him socks and a sweater.

One person jumped one level from the third floor to the second, then two stories down onto trash cans, according to Assistant Fire Chief Orlando Marcano. She lost consciousness and was taken to the hospital for treatment. (“She is going to recuperate,” Marcano reported.)

Two people jumped from the third floor onto the roof a second-floor alcove, then onto another roof a story down, then onto the ground.

“There are two people up there trapped on the third floor!” one man who had jumped to safety told the firefighters.

So, as they spread out in the house, some of the firefighters went looking for the pair.

Encumbered by their air tanks, they needed to navigate a narrow, twisting back hallway enveloped by thick smoke.

Capt. Reynolds and Firefighter Kevin Siedlarz (who has experience pulling people out of burning buildings) made it through the door to the third-floor apartment, searching amid the blinding smoke.

“You couldn’t see anything” at first in the apartment, Reynolds said.

Then Siedlarz noticed the first of the men on the ground. ​“The guy was between between a bed and a bureau,” Reynolds said. He didn’t notice hearing the some detector alerting people to the blaze.

The man on the floor was unconscious. And he was ​“heavy, probably 200, 225 pounds,” Reynolds said.

Hoping the man was still alive, Reynolds and Siedlarz managed to lift him up, then battle the heat, the smoke, the narrow stairway to get him downstairs.

Firefighters brought down the second man, also unconscious. The two men were transported by ambulance to the hospital — and, sadly, pronounced dead.

Sixteen people in all lived in the house, according to Marcano. The other 14 made it out alive. The Red Cross is helping them find places to stay.

Some of the tenants were injured. Four firefighters were injured as well. None of the injuries was life-threatening, according to Marcano.

Reynolds sprained his back. He was given a painkiller at the hospital, then released. He said he hopes to return to work in the Howard Avenue firehouse in a day or two. ​“I don’t like to be out of work too long,” he said.

“I’m just sad people died,” he reflected. ​“I think they were overcome by the smoke — it was too late.”

The two men who died hadn’t been identified by late morning, according to Capt. Ray Saracco of the Fire Investigation Unit, who was on the scene.

“This fire had everything,” said Reynolds, who has 22 years on the job. ​“An occupied house, time of day when people are in the house, lot of fire on the second floor, people outside screaming and yelling, trapped occupants.”

Problem Property, Out-Of-Town Landlord

One of the people gathered outside was Dara Mason, who lives across the street. She had just come home from a party and was preparing for bed when she heard the commotion.

“I’m thinking, ​‘Oh, they’re fighting again,’” she said. Until she heard people yelling, ​“It’s a fire! It’s a fire!”

The house at 150 West has been a problem for the neighborhood for a long time, Mason said. She’s friends with one of the tenants, who went to a relative’s house around the corner after the fire. Some of the other tenants openly smoke crack and cause problems for neighborhoods, Mason said. She said she complains to the property manager, whose cell phone she has and whom she said she couldn’t reach about this fire. (When the number was tried Sunday afternoon, a recording said the voice mailbox was full.)

Neighbor DeLeon said she has been complaining to the city about conditions at 150 West, especially piled-up trash on the premises. WTNH reported that a stabbing occurred recently at the property as well.

The house has five bedrooms, and was built in 1910, according to the city’s assessment database.

The owner of record is listed in the assessment database as Dorjan Jashari of Yonkers, N.Y. He is listed as the owner of two other Hill properties as well, at 78 3rd St. and 649 Washington Ave.

But land records show that Jashari sold the West Street house in March for $155,000 to John L. Farrar of Bronx, N.Y..

The state fire marshal has been called in for to probe what happened. ​“This is going to be a protracted, detailed investigation,” Marcano predicted.

By mid-morning Capt. Saracco and Police Detective Mike Torre of the Fire Investigation Unit had obtained a search warrant to begin looking for clues.

Marcano noted that it’s been a ​“tough week” for firefighters since the death of one of their ranks, George Browne.

But they rose to the challenge. ​“They saved the house. They saved 14 people,” Marcano noted. ​“The firemen are incredible. I cannot laud them enough.”

“it was a tough fire for the guy,” Capt. Reynolds said, noting the department’s youth. ​“People saw a lot of things for the first time.”