CBS 2

2nd Fatal NYC Fire In 2 Days

Both perished just after midnight in the three-story house in Brooklyn's Bushwick neighborhood.

The 12-year-old boy and 33-year-old man were taken to Wyckoff Hospital, where they were pronounced dead. It was not immediately clear whether the victims were related.

Authorities did not release their names, pending notification of family.

Fire marshals are investigating the cause of the blaze.

On Saturday, a Chelsea apartment fire claimed the lives of five, including three children as young as 15 months. A 10-year-old boy who survived the blaze was hospitalized in critical condition.

The child was found with two other family members in a back bedroom, while the rest of the family sought refuge in a full bathtub and underneath a bathroom sink, officials said.

The cause of the fire, which began in the kitchen of the sixth-floor apartment, was under investigation. But the Fire Department of New York said the apartment's smoke detector had been unplugged and the battery was removed.

Killed were a 40-year-old man, Maschay Joa Valdez; Delkis Balbuena, a 34-year-old woman; and three girls, Nanny Joa Balbuena, 8; Bet-El Joa Balbuena, 3, and Ruth Joa Balbuena, 15 months. The 10-year-old boy was not identified.

Autopsies on the victims were to be performed Sunday, said Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for the city medical examiner's office. The boy was at Jacobi Medical Center, enclosed in a hyperbaric chamber that supplies oxygen to burn victims, fire officials said.

Kathy Creer, who lives one floor below, said she knocked on the family's door after a neighbor told her about the blaze. "I was banging but I heard nothing, no noise," she said.

"[There's a] little boy fighting for his life, so who knows," Creer said. "If he don't make it, that's the whole family."

"This is really tragic," neighbor Miguel Acevedo said. "Nobody wants to see a family removed like this."

The hallway was hazy from the smoke, which was pouring from underneath the apartment door, she said.