WASHINGTON (AP) -- A 10-month-old boy was killed early Sunday in a fire at his Northeast Washington apartment.
Jonah Flores was one of five people in the third-floor apartment at 1305 Columbia Road, said Alan Etter, a spokesman for the District of Columbia Fire and EMS Department. He died at a hospital from severe burns and smoke inhalation.
Jonah's 83-year-old great-grandmother was being treated for serious, but non-life-threatening injuries, Etter said. The boy's 4-year-old brother and two female cousins, a 10-year-old and a 12-year old, were also in the apartment, but were barely injured, he said.
Fire officials were investigating the cause, but had received information that a candle had been left burning in the apartment, which had no electricity, Etter said.
He said crews saw fire coming out of the top of the three-story garden-style apartment when they arrived on the scene at around 3:15 a.m. Firefighters rescued a number of residents from other units using ladders.
City officials were also investigating why the apartment's electricity had been shut off, said D.C. Council member Jim Graham, D-Ward 1, who represents the area.
The tenant in the apartment had applied last week for city assistance with electric bills, Graham said, and officials were trying to determine the outcome.
A spokesman for Mayor Anthony A. Williams said the city would investigate, but he stressed that the D.C. Energy Office can't guarantee that the power will be restored, only that money will be paid toward the electric bill.
''We can't make Pepco turn people's power back on,'' he told The Washington Post.
Debbi Jarvis, a Pepco spokeswoman, said company policy prohibits her from discussing a customer's case, but the utility will investigate.
Copyright 2005 Associated Press
