Editor's note: Another fire in Florida early Tuesday left three dead. Read the story here.
March 11--WEST HAVEN -- A fire at the Mallard Brook Crossing condominium complex on Coleman Street claimed the lives of a couple and their adult daughter early Tuesday.
A call about the fire at 89 Coleman St. came in at 4:24 a.m., said Chief James O'Brien. Firefighters left the station at 4:26 a.m. and arrived at 4:28 a.m.
The fire was in Unit 214 of Building 2. The Mallard Brook Crossing condominiums are made up of some 150 units in nine buildings.
One of the victims, a woman who was found in the living room, had died by the time firefighters arrived. Firefighters rescued a man and another woman from different bedrooms.
They were rushed to Yale-New Haven Hospital, but did not survive, O'Brien said.
"Unfortunately, all three residents did perish," he said.
The fire, which firefighters extinguished within minutes, appears to have started in the living room, O'Brian said.
West Haven police and state fire marshal's are investigating. A representative of the Milford state's attorney's office also has been called to the scene, although that doesn't mean officials think the fire was intentionally set, he said.
It's common to alert prosecutors when there are multiple fatalities from a fire, he said.
Kimberly Mathis, who lives next door to the three, said they were like family to her.
She would have a packages delivered there when she was away. She worked out with the daughter. The mom would buy her groceries and she would reciprocate. And she brought cakes to the dad, an old-school Italian who would refer to her as his daughter.
"They were just good people and it's just a tragedy that the whole family's gone," she said.
Mathis said that she and her husband were woken up Tuesday by a neighbor telling them there was a fire in the building. She said they ran outside and Mathis saw that the fire was in her friends' unit. Mathis has a key to the family's unit and ran back inside to retrieve it, but by the time she returned the fire had escalated.
"You couldn't touch the door or anything," she said.
Firefighters arrived and kicked the door in, Mathis said. They brought two people out.
"They did a wonderful job coming in and trying to save the family but it was too late, unfortunately," Mathis said.
She doesn't know if the family's smoke detectors were working, she said. But she urged people to check in on their neighbors and make sure that their fire safety equipment is up to par.
"They're going to be missed," she said.
Another neighbor said she and the mother, who is also a grandmother, would chat from time to time.
"She was a nice lady," she said.
Neighbor Sandra Skorzewski said she awoke to a neighbor banging on her door.
He said, frantically, "Get your kids out!" she said.
She said she did not hear any smoke detectors sounding.
Later a woman came to the scene and said, "That's my whole family in there. I lost my whole family."
Skorzewski said she used to have a smoke with one of the women who lived there, and they used to chat.
The woman had recently had surgery on her knee and she showed her the scars, she said. She didn't know the woman's name.
The man who lived in the apartment was sickly and had had strokes, she said.
"It's sad that all of them are gone," she said.
"Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their family," said Fran Gregoriades of Harborview Realty, the property management firm. She didn't know the family, who rented the unit, she said.
Copyright 2014 - The Hartford Courant
