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by BILL EGBERT and TONY SCLAFANI
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
A Staten Island woman was killed yesterday when she leaped from her attic window to escape a raging fire, officials and relatives Sylvine Humes-Wong, 46, who recently became a grandmother, jumped from the 2-1/2-story Port Richmond apartment as flames and smoke swept through about 7:30 a.m., fire officials said. Humes-Wong died at St. Vincent's Hospital on Staten Island.
Her sons, Nicholas, 24, a Navy veteran, and Michael, 16, were hurt, but escaped by dashing out of the front door.
Both were taken to St. Vincent's Hospital and listed in stable condition. Michael was recovering in the intensive care unit after being burned over 20% of his body when he went back in for his mom, relatives said.
Five other people on the first and second floors also escaped.
Fire marshals believe the blaze may have been accidentally started by a candle, sources said.
"She's got a newborn granddaughter who she'll never know," said Humes-Wong's daughter, Chantal Valiente, holding her month-old girl. "She was at our home last night," Valiente said, adding it was the second time her mom saw the baby, named Chanel. "They just started getting close."
Valiente and her husband, Collin Guida, 24, lived at the house before moving to Jamaica, Queens. Guida said the attic only had one narrow exit.
The 60 firefighters who responded to the Haughwout Ave. blaze got the flames under control in less than 45 minutes.
Humes-Wong worked as an artist and stored her paintings in the house, where she had lived since November 2003, relatives said.
Meanwhile, a Bronx inferno left 16 Morrisania families homeless just before 4 a.m. yesterday when fire broke out in the five-story building on Eagle Ave. near E. 161st St. Flames roared through four floors, from the second to the fifth, fire officials and neighbors said. The American Red Cross was providing temporary shelter to the displaced.
The four-alarm fire, which spread to a vacant church, left one resident, 13 firefighters and two cops with minor injuries. It took 168 firefighters more than two hours to bring under control. The cause was under investigation.
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