Raging House Fire Kills Baby
Camden Courier-Post —
12 residents left homeless after city blaze
By SEAN McKINNEY, Courier-Post Staff
CAMDEN — The woman ran from the front door of her burning house yesterday afternoon, carrying her 2-year-old child and screaming, “please, save my baby,” according to a witness.
Neighbors tried to run into the house to rescue her second child but were turned back by the quickly spreading fire. They said they went inside a neighboring house for a bucket of water.
But by then it was too late. Fire officials said a fire started by an electrical space heater swept through the home and two adjoining houses within a few minutes, killing 14-month-old Shontaye Johns.
The two-alarm fire on the 100 block of North 25th Street in East Camden also injured the mother’s 2-year-old child and left 12 people homeless, according to residents of the houses.
The body of the baby was found on the floor of a second-floor, front bedroom at 108 N. 25th Street, officials said. An autopsy was to be performed today.
“We tried to get in again to save the baby but there was too much fire,” said the witness, Annette Andino, 23, a resident of Mechanic Street who was visiting the neighborhood when the two-alarm fire was reported at 12:50 p.m. “In less than a minute it spread.”
Bonnie Johns, the 23-year-old mother of the victim, told police Detective Edwin Hoffman that she had fallen asleep on a couch in the living room with Shontaye and her 2-year-old, Sierra Johns.
Hoffman said a second couch in the room was ignited by a space heater placed 1 foot from the couch. When the mother awoke, she told Hoffman, Shontaye had already awakened and had gotten off the couch on which they had been sleeping.
That is when the mother ran from the house, Hoffman said.
Investigators were trying to figure out how a 14-month-old baby could have climbed the steps and gotten to the front bedroom while the fire spread.
One fire official speculated it was possible the 14-month-old was on the second floor the whole time.
While she was being taken from the house, 2-year-old Sierra Johns suffered second-degree burns of the left hip and left elbow. The child was treated and released at Cooper Hospital-University Medical Center, Camden.
Among the displaced residents were 22-year-old Marybell Collazo and her 3-month-old daughter, Jennifer.
“I tried to call the fire department but it was already out of control,” said Collazo, who lives two doors from the Johns with her aunt, 40-year-old Maria Maldonado, and Maldonado’s two children, 15-year-old Marisol and 14-year-old Mildred. “My aunt ran upstairs and got my baby and ran out. And then I had to run out too.”
Officials said the fire spread quickly because of the wood frame construction of the houses, which were destroyed. Driveways on each side of the three row houses prevented flames from spreading further, according to Fire Chief Joseph Rotchford of Battalion I.
“When we got there, flames were shooting 15 to 20 feet out of the windows,” said Rotchford, whose battalion was called in on a second alarm at 12:54 p.m. “It burnt the power lines right off the poles. We had live wires in the street until we could get the power cut off.”
The fire was declared under control at 1:32 p.m.
Courier-Post photo by Curt Hudson
Fatal blaze: A firefighter pours water on a blazing frame home in the 100 block of N. 25th Street in East Camden in which a child died yesterday despite rescue attempts by neighbors. Twelve residents of three nearby houses were left homeless.