Police: Harlem fire claims 6 lives, including 4 children

HARLEM, N.Y. (AP) — The New York Fire Department says six people, including four children, were killed in an early morning blaze in a Harlem apartment building.

Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro says they received a call reporting the blaze at 1:40 a.m. Wednesday from a person across the street from the seven-story Fred Samuels Houses on Seventh Avenue near 142 Street.

Nigro says firefighters responded within three minutes to the fifth-floor fire.

He says firefighters aggressively moved in to extinguish the flames and when they reached two rear bedrooms they found the bodies of two adults and four children ranging in ages from 3 to 11. They are all believed to be family members.

Nigro says roughly 100 firefighters were on the scene and it took more than an hour to get the fire under control.

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