Nov. 29, 1964 - While fire marshals were talking early this morning to the mother of two infants who had perished just hours before in a fire apparently started by another of her children playing with matches, another tenant, two floors above them in the same Bronx tenement, was setting two more fires.
The marshals arrested the man and quoted him as saying he wished “the building would burn to the ground” because his wife had berated him for not being home with his family at the time the fatal blaze had threatened their safety.
The bizarre story was related to the Daily News by Deputy Chief Fire Marshal Edwin H. Sheppard, co-commander of the Fire Department’s bureau of fire investigation.
Sheppard said that the first fire started shortly before 11 p.m. last night in the fourth-floor apartment of Mrs. Rosa Bass Alvarado at 940 E. 165th St.
She put her three children, Luis, 3, Carlos, 2, and Cynthia, 2 months, to bed and visited neighbors across the hall.
“During the 20 minutes she was out,” Sheppard said, “Luis apparently spent playing with matches.”
A fire started in the boy’s bedroom and spread to the rest of the apartment. When the mother returned, she was hit by a blast of superheated air and smoke, and she fainted.
A neighbor broke into the apartment from the rear fire escape and rescued Luis. He is now in Lincoln Hospital in fair condition suffering from smoke inhalation.
The fire quickly went to two alarms, bringing almost a dozen pieces of apparatus to the six-story building. Firemen from Rescue Co. 3 brought out Cynthia (pictured held by firefighter Michael Maye) and Carlos. As they administered mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in a futile attempt to save the children, other firemen evacuated the building’s 100 tenants.
Included in this number was the family of a 22-year-old house painter, Victor Santiago. The Santiagos, with the other tenants, were later allowed to return to their apartments.
Sheppard sent supervisory Fire Marshal John Corey and Marshals Edward Kelly and Joseph Rodriguez to investigate the blaze.
After examining the apartment, they started to question Mrs. Alvarado, who had just been told that her two youngest children had died in Lincoln Hospital.
Just then, a tenant broke in to tell the marshals of a fire burning in the sixth-floor hallway.
The officials extinguished the blaze, a pile of benzine-doused rags. Then, checking a vacant apartment nearby, they found another rag fire which had burned itself out without causing damage.
Satisfied that the earlier fire was caused by Mrs. Alvorado’s surviving child, the marshals questioned sixth-floor tenants.
Sheppard said that after a few questions, Santiago admitted setting the two small fires.
Santiago had returned home after the first fire, and his wife had scolded him for staying out.
“In order to get even with her, Santiago attempted to fire the building,” Sheppard said. Sheppard said that Santiago said he wished “the building would burn to the ground.”
Santiago was booked for arson at the Simpson St. station. He will be arraigned today. The two Alvorado children will be buried tomorrow.
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