A Bronx mother was killed and her three children critically injured early yesterday when a fire sparked by a cigarette swept through their basement apartment, authorities said.
Fire officials said Maria Tosado, 31, succumbed to flames when she ran back into the burning apartment at 1200 Harding Park to save the children she’d left behind.
Firefighters pulled Tosado’s children – Giovanni Rodriguez, 10, Nelson Tosado, 5, and Tattiana Tosado, 4 – from the inferno.
All three suffered serious smoke inhalation and were listed in critical condition at Jacobi and Montefiore hospitals.
Manuel Tosado, the father of the two younger children, was able to escape the fire virtually unscathed, said officials at Jacobi Hospital, where he was treated and released.
Fire officials said a preliminary investigation indicated the blaze had been caused by “careless smoking.”
Manuel Tosado and the three children had apparently gone to bed some time before the fire broke out at 1:30 a.m., but Maria Tosado, 31, stayed up, smoking a cigarette, fire officials said.
Shortly after she went to bed, the two parents awoke to a smoke-filled apartment. They ran upstairs to the first floor of the building, leaving the children behind, fire officials said.
“Then they realized that the children were not with them,” said Fire Department Citywide Command Chief Donald Burns. “The mother went back down to get the children, and while she was down there, she succumbed.”
When firefighters arrived on the scene, neighbors said they found Manuel Tosado out on the street, unclothed and screaming, “My kids are in there! My kids are in there!”
Firefighters found the mother dead in the bedroom with two of the kids on the bed and one on the floor.
Neighbors said Manuel Tosado was unemployed and Maria Tosado worked as an administrative assistant at Soundview Medical Center.
The family lived in the tiny cellar of the building, owned by Manuel Tosado’s family, said neighbor Joshua Rivera.
“They were a happy family,” he said.