by RICHARD WEIR and TONY SCLAFANI
A quick-thinking, 70-year-old Queens woman saved her three grandchildren and another child yesterday from a blaze that killed her nephew and his pal, fire officials and relatives said.
"My grandma started yelling, telling everybody to get out," said Kiasia Durham, 11, who escaped barefoot. "I had no shoes on, no socks, when I ran out into the snow."
Nina Durham's grandchildren and a friend's child, ages 11 to 19, were sleeping upstairs in the two-story Jamaica house when she screamed, sending them out in the cold in pajamas and no shoes.
But it was too late to save her nephew, church organist John McDuffy, 59, and his friend Lisa Grisom, 40, who died in the scorched basement where the fire broke out, officials and relatives said.
The house was gutted by the fire, which was under investigation.
Durham sprung into action just before 7a.m. when she felt the floor of her home on Bedell St. heating up and spotted flames shooting up from a basement vent.
"She tried to go back in the house but she was drawn back by the smoke," said her daughter Barbara Drakeford, who rushed from her home less than a mile away. "Whenever she talks about it, she starts crying."
Firefighters charged inside and doused the flames for about 20 minutes before they were ordered to evacuate when the first floor collapsed, officials said.
It took more than 100 firefighters nearly two hours to get the two-alarm blaze under control.
Durham, a mother of seven, her three grandkids and the friend's child were not hurt. But all were deeply saddened by the loss of life and their house so close to the holidays.
"Everyone just jumped and grabbed what they could," Drakeford said. "Everything was lost."
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