Boy, 5, Is Killed and Brother Injured in Md. Fire

A 5-year-old boy was killed and his 7-year-old brother was critically injured yesterday evening in a fire in the family's apartment in the Riverdale Park area of Prince George's County, a fire department spokesman said.

The boys' father was injured when he tried to get into the apartment to reach them, the spokesman said. None of the family members was immediately identified.

The fire, reported shortly after 5 p.m., was ruled accidental and attributed to unattended cooking.

Neighbors told of desperate efforts by area residents to try to reach the boys in their smoke-filled quarters, in the 5400 block of 56th Place.

"They were saying: 'There's kids in there. We've got to get them out,' " as they gathered in the parking lot of the complex of redbrick, two- and three-story apartments, an area resident said.

Some tried to break windows. Some, holding T-shirts over their mouths, tried to crawl below the billowing black smoke to reach the back bedroom where the boys were found.

Mark Brady, chief spokesman for the county Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department, said firefighters arrived within four minutes of being sent to the Oak Ridge apartments, between Kenilworth Avenue and the Baltimore Washington Parkway.

After spotting the smoke, some firefighters quelled the blaze, which had broken out in the kitchen of the first-floor apartment.

Other firefighters went into the back bedroom.

Neither of the boys was breathing when the firefighters found them, and neither had a pulse, Brady said.

A witness said she saw each carried out in the arms of a firefighter.

Outside, the firefighters began to administer CPR to the children.