Authorities continue to investigate the fatal Bronx fire that claimed the life of a seven-year-old girl and seriously injured her three-year-old half-sister. Hazel Martinez, 7, was pronounced dead at Lincoln Hospital, while Haley Martinez remains in critical condition at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center after a 3:15 blaze tore through her family's apartment on Sunday.
Hazel Martinez
The girls had the same father, and they lived with both their mothers, father, and three brothers in a fourth floor apartment. One neighbor described the horror to DNAinfo, "I looked out of my window and I saw a man screaming from the apartment building that was on fire. It looked like he was trapped, he was screaming real loud... I ran downstairs and saw a young girl on a stretcher. She wasn't moving and she was black, real dark, covered in soot. She was burned real bad." A neighbor who lived directly above the girls' apartment said, "It was horrifying. You couldn’t see anything — everything was black."
Five firefighters also suffered minor injuries. Investigators found a five-gallon gas can and an apparently "compromised" natural gas line at the scene of the Grant Avenue fire. However, the Post's "sources cautioned that the gas container might have been left over from Hurricane Sandy. And the natural-gas line could have been altered only to save money, law-enforcement sources said."
One mourning neighbor said that Hazel was a beautiful girl, "She was in my granddaughter’s class last year and she always said, 'Hi Mckayla’s grandmother!' I hear in my head this morning her saying that."
