Mother, two girls die in fast moving Brooklyn fire

A doting mother and her two daughters killed when a fast-moving kitchen fire tore through their Brooklyn apartment Friday left an indelible mark on their neighbors — and the street outside their home, heartbroken building residents said.

A brightly-colored hopscotch board was still sketched out on Gates Ave. in Bedford Stuyvesant.

“(That’s) from the girls playing yesterday,” neighbor Darlene Brown-Bezear told the Daily News Friday.

Memories of better times did little to temper the horrors of the morning.

“When I got down (the mom) was on the ground. They were pumping her trying to keep her alive,” remembered Brown-Bezear, 64.

The fatal fire broke out inside the small family’s third-floor apartment just after 5 a.m.

When firefighters arrived at the scene three minutes after they were called, the blaze was already raging in the kitchen.

As the fire raged, firefighters moved past the kitchen area to the apartment’s rear bedrooms, said FDNY Chief John Sarrocco.

There, they found 48-year-old Danielle Havens and her two daughters, Journee Miles, 11, and Kelsee Miles, 9, unconscious.

They were pulled out of the apartment as other firefighters began tackling the blaze, Sarrocco said.

“We brought them out of the building and we performed advance life support at scene before we transported them to an area hospital,” Sarrocco said.

All three victims were declared dead at Woodhull Hospital, police said.

The fire was sparked by “cooking carelessness,” and there was no smoke alarm present, the FDNY said.

“I can’t even understand how that could have happened,” Brown-Bezear said of the tragedy. “(Danielle) was really attentive. She was a wonderful mother. The kids were happy.”

Havens’ girls often visited Brown-Bezear’s apartment next door to play with the older woman’s cats and watch classic movies.

“(They’d watch) ‘The Sound of Music,’ ‘Mary Poppins.’ They had fun,” Brown-Bezear recalled. “Good neighbors aren’t easy to find.”

Havens and Brown-Bezear somehow gravitated toward each other even though they often kept to themselves, the heartbroken neighbor said.

“She always had her kids with her. Even when she walked her dog, she didn’t leave her kids (alone),” she said.

“When you look at the way she died, she had her kids with her,” she said quietly.

Neighbors recalled hearing a small explosion before the fire broke out. The building smoke alarms didn’t go off, Brown-Bezear recalled.

“The firemen were knocking down my door. They saved my life,” she said. “Once I opened my eyes, I could smell (the smoke) and I could see it a little in my bedroom, but once you start walking toward the living room you couldn’t see anything.”

Brown-Bezear had three cats she rescued from the streets. Jumper and Gem survived the blaze. Aria did not.

The family dog also survived the fire, Brown-Bezear said.

Neighbor Sandra Lemonier said she also didn’t hear any smoke alarms. She woke up choking from the smoke.

“I coughed in my sleep,” said Lemonier, 36. “Then I went to the living room. My doorknob was hot, but I was able to open it and I heard my neighbors say ‘Get your boys, get out.’ So that’s when I knew it was real.”

Lemonier and her sons Jazper, 10, and Jaden, 15, managed to escape the building in time.

Mayor Adams and FDNY Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh toured the scene of the fatal fire Friday.

“It’s just a terrible situation, a terrible way to start a day,” Adams said. “There’s some learning experiences here that we’re going to incorporate based on what we saw inside. But it’s a really unfortunate situation, and my heart goes out to them.”

“This is an incredible tragedy for this neighborhood and this family,” Kavanagh said.

“We did incredibly quick work here getting water on the fire, pulling (the victims) out right away and bringing them to EMS, but due to the serious nature of their injuries, they did not survive.”

The blaze was put out within an hour and did not progress past the victim’s apartment although apartments on the lower floors suffered water damage, Sarrocco said.

No other injuries were reported.

The girls’ grandfather and other relatives showed up at the pitted home Friday morning. The devastated and distraught father was seen tearing down police tape in an attempt to get inside, residents remember.

Distraught family and neighbors formed an impromptu prayer circle at the site with Dr. Kim Best, the president of the 79th Precinct Community Council.

”I’m just so emotional right now myself,” Best said. “To lose people that close in the family, a daughter and two young children, it’s a bit much.”

As the investigation continued, residents were huddled outside under American Red Cross blankets, struggling with an unwelcome dose of survivor’s guilt.

“I’m so sorry for the loss of the family,” neighbor Rob Brown, 34, said. “People died, and you know I’m glad we survived but those people still died and they didn’t have a chance.”