At first, firefighters thought Maria Alejandro had made it out of this building and was safe with her parents, but then everybody realized that was not the case. The nine-year-old was still in the building. Crews re-entered the building and they found Maria' crouched under a bed.
Anthony Pagano, Yonkers Fire Commissioner: "The wind, the rain, and the snow made it slippery outside. With the lines we had to stretch, it was a fight."
But when the fire ended, the cream colored brick apartment building could no longer be a home. Over 40 families were sheltered for the night in a nearby school. The Red Cross is helping to relocate them.
Smoke streamed for hours from the top floor, where the roof collapsed and where the fire started.
It's where a sleeping nine year old girl was killed. Maria Alejandro may have been trapped as high-winds from the Hudson River pushed the fire through the upper floors of the building.
Resident: "I heard about candles that started everything."
As many as 80 firefighters battled the four-alarm blaze. Two firefighters were injured trying to find the girl. They have second-degree burns to the neck, arms and hands.
People who lived in the building say the smoke was unbelievable as they ran to escape the fire.
Jose Uyeda, Resident: "I was happy to see the fire department but I would have been happier to see that girl come out the building."
The winds are still whipping out here and even with these conditions, firefighters did a remarkable job at keeping the flames just to that building. The last fatal fire in Yonkers was back in April.
Meanwhile, this was not the only fatal fire to hit the New York area.
Two girls were killed when a third-alarm fire tore through their home in the town of Walden in Orange County.
The victims, ages four and seven, were trapped in the burning house at 30 Valley Avenue, just off Route 52. They could not escape and were pronounced dead at the scene.
The girls' parents escaped with three other children who were not hurt.
The fire broke out just before 1:30 a.m. and quickly tore through the large home. Flames leaped to a neighboring house before being extinguished.
A pellet stove in the rear of the house is believed to have sparked the blaze. The blaze was the first fatal fire in Walden since the mid-1990s.
