Fire races through Boston home, injuring 14 and requiring dramatic rescues of children

A quick-moving blaze consumed a three-story home Monday, sending firefighters scrambling up ladders to pluck screaming children from the top floor and hurting 14 adults and children, authorities said.

Some victims jumped or fell from second- and third-floor balconies, Boston Emergency Medical Services chief Richard Serino said.

Eight adults and six children were taken to the hospital for treatment, Serino said, and two were in serious condition, including a 2-year-old boy found by a firefighter who was groping his way through the smoke.

"I was crawling on the floor, I couldn't see anything. I opened a couple of doors and I heard a faint cry and just feeling around there and heard a baby on the bed," firefighter Renard Miller told reporters at the scene. "So I felt around the bed and found the baby. I took my mask off and put it on the baby's face."

Miller passed the child to firefighters out a window, and paramedics treated the boy and took him to a hospital, Serino said.

Neighbor Rosamund Bloom said she saw the flames start on the first floor, then race up the building and through the roof. A young man driving past who saw the smoke rescued an adult and two children, and a woman jumped from a third-floor balcony, she said.

A short circuit in a first-floor living room sparked the blaze, Boston Fire spokesman Steve MacDonald said.