Father saves two young sons from fatal fire

NEW BEDFORD (WHDH) -- A man was killed when an early morning fire tore through a New Bedford building Saturday.

Four others, including a father and his two young sons, survived the flames.

Neighbors say that father dodged flames with his sons - six and eight years old - while escaping from their second-story apartment,

“The father of two kids was leaning against our door,” Brian Breton said. “Burns -- everything. Skin peeling off. He was saying he was in so much pain.”

Awakened by the sound of a smoke detector, a downstairs neighbor says he made it out onto Russell Street just as that father was running back into the building.

“He came down with one son, found out the other son didn't come down, he went up, all three of them were burnt,” Peter Domes said.

When New Bedford firefighters arrived they found a second man had also escaped with injuries from the same apartment. But the victims told firefighters that there was still one more trapped inside.

“They made an aggressive attack through the front and they were faced with heavy fire on the second floor,” New Bedford Chief James Fortin said.

Crews managed to largely stop the fire from spreading into three other apartments, but only after finding a man's body on the second floor.

“The father of the kids was yelling, ‘I still have someone up there, someone didn't come down’,” Breton said.

The names of the victims had not yet been released as of Saturday night.

One child and the father were taken to Rhode Island hospitals. The other child and the other man hurt in the fire were taken nearby to St. Luke's Hospital and had already been released by Saturday night.

The fire doesn't appear suspicious to investigators, who say they haven't found the cause yet.