It was a close call for two small children and their mother, trapped in a bedroom by smoke and fire.
It happened Friday afternoon near the new center area.
Four people including two children were rushed to the hospital.
When firefighters arrived, they say the children's grandmother was down on the sidewalk, but the children and their mother were still inside.
“A smoke detector could have easily prevented this from happening today that is for sure,” says Chief Patrick McNulty with Detroit Fire investigations.
While the fire was contained to one room, the smoke was heavy, and it spread throughout the second floor and could have been deadly.
The fire started inside an upstairs bedroom in the house on Clairmount Avenue near the Lodge.
Apparently hoping to hide from the smoke, a woman and her two children - a four-year-old boy and a six-month-old girl - went into another bedroom where firefighters found them and pulled them to safety.
A relative says the children's 79-year-old grandmother sustained a head injury and she was laying on the sidewalk when help arrived.
Fire investigators say, unfortunately, there were no working smoke detectors in the home.
“We have smoke detectors available,” says McNulty. “We give them out for free. This is also the time of year we tell people to change batteries in smoke detectors.”
As for what started this fire, investigators have not ruled out that it may have been a child playing with fire.
“It looks like a bedroom fire, in a mattress,” McNulty says. “it's too early, but we'll know more later.”
Thankfully the children's uncle says they're all expected to be okay.
