Firefighters told a Cleveland.com reporter that there were no working smoke detectors in either of the two homes where fires broke out Monday.
Just after midnight Sunday night / Monday morning, a fire started on E. 49th Street in the city’s North Broadway neighborhood. A 55-year-old woman, Linda Peck, and her 30-year-old son, Christopher Peck, died from smoke inhalation in the blaze. A dog also died. Via a city press release, the division of fire continues to investigate the origin of that fire.
A few hours later, on Searsdale Avenue in Cleveland’s Old Brooklyn neighborhood, an eight-year-old boy, later identified as Marious Cruz, died in a house fire. His mother and nine-year-old brother leaped from the a second-story window of the duplex. The eight-year-old was found on the third floor and was pronounced dead upon arrival at Metro. The city said last night that the woman, who suffered a dislocated shoulder and second-degree burns, is in critical condition and remains under observation at the hospital.
These three deaths arrive after similar tragedies last week. A 62-year-old woman, Mary Kelly, died in an Old-Brooklyn house fire on July 9. And another eight-year-old child, Kihlee Richardson, died alongside her great-grandmother Catherine Miller in a July 12 house fire on Granton Avenue in West Park.
(See Cleveland.com’s report of the fatalities yesterday.)
In the wake of these events, the city has issued a PSA (video below), a “critical, timely reminder for the community: The City strongly encourages the community to install and maintain smoke detectors, practice fire escape plans, eliminate fire hazards and maintain fire safety practices within the home.”
This article appears in Jul 12-18, 2017.
