Firefighters rescued a deaf woman and her two young children from a 2-alarm blaze in Boston on Wednesday morning.
Boston fire said they responded to 68 West Newton St. in the South End., a 4-story brick apartment building, around 8:05 a.m. Heavy flames were reportedly knocked down within 30 minutes.
Aerial video from the scene showed heavy smoke coming from the building and multiple residents being rescued from their windows by a ladder truck.
Boston fire said they rescued one woman and two children, a 6-year-old girl, and a 6-month-old girl, from a third-floor balcony.
"It's terrifying holding a toddler or even an infant," Boston fire Lt. Michael Guilfoyle said. "The guys staggered out, they did a great job. We just transferred them down the ladder."
The victim's sisters identified the woman as 31-year-old Alicia Soto-Rodriguez and her two children, Annabelle and Amelia.
All three were taken to Massachusetts General Hospital to get checked out, fire officials said.
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"She has some smoke in her lungs and the kids are fine which is the most important thing," said one of the victim's sisters, Shailing Santiago Rodriguez.
The victim's sisters said Soto-Rodriguez is deaf and it was a visual alarm that alerted her to the fire.
"It's a visual alarm so she said all the lights were on so she knew something was going on," Katherine Santiago, another sister said.
A woman in a basement apartment also made it out safely with her 16-year-old cat.
"Boom. Huge cloud of smoke and I had to come all the way down through the hallways covering her instead of covering myself. Now I just lost everything," the woman said.
Four other people, including Lawrence Anzelone and his dog, as well as two turtles, were also displaced from their homes as a result of the fire. Fire officials said not all pets made it out alive.
"Now I got to deal with this on top of everything else in my life," Anzelone said after making it out of the building with his dog.
No firefighters were injured.
Boston police said traffic in the area was impacted and urged motorists to seek alternate routes.
The building was destroyed by the fire. Later in the day, fire officials determined that the cause of the blaze was an electrical issue.
