Two little girls played with fire before a deadly fire broke out at a birthday party, officials say

The two girls, ages 6 and 8, who died in a house fire on Eckert Avenue in Newark early Sunday morning were playing with fire near a couch, the Essex County District Attorney’s Office said.

The fire was started during the birthday party of one of the girls, the office said.

Neighbors interviewed on Sunday afternoon described a chaotic scene after the fire broke out. Three families live in the house in the Weequahic neighborhood, just off Interstate 78.

Shonda Simpson, who lives next door, said she heard “a lot of screaming, crying and yelling.”

“The first responders were here within two to three minutes, along with our mayor who was out here all night,” she said. “Despite the efforts of our first responders, we still lost two babies.”

Investigators from the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office Arson Unit arrived and found the bodies of the two young girls on the ground and “severely burned,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

Despite efforts to revive them, the two girls were pronounced dead at the scene, officials said.

Witnesses told investigators that a birthday party for one of the girls was taking place on the second floor of the apartment building and the girls were “playing with fire near a couch in the hallway,” prosecutors said.

Investigators searched the building and concluded the fire started on the second floor and spread to the third floor.

“Our community is doing really bad right now. Normally there’s constant traffic on the street – people are in their houses, they’re not feeling well right now,” Simpson said. “We’re trying to process what’s going on and decide where we’re going and where we’re going as a community.”

Other people went to the hospital with burns from the fire, said Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, who was at the scene.

“It’s just terrible,” Baraka said in a telephone interview with NJ Advance Media on Sunday afternoon. “The firefighters were visibly shaken. Two children dying in a fire is a terrible experience. You could feel it in the air.”

The New Jersey Red Cross provided emergency assistance to 15 people from seven families, a spokesman said Sunday. Residents of the burning building and an adjacent building were displaced, the organization said.

Birthday decorations were still hanging from the porch of the Eckert Avenue home Sunday afternoon, as some people were in the neighborhood of two- and three-story homes that still smelled of smoke.

Simpson said her neighbors were “beautiful little girls” who played with her daughter

“(They were) so kind, so loving, bubbly, full of life, full of love, very friendly…every morning I would go out and they would wave,” she said. “They were running up and down the yard playing with my daughter,” she said. “That craft on the porch was theirs.”

Adrianna Santos, who lives a block away on Osborne Place, said she and her mother heard sirens and police cars around 12:06 a.m

“I went to Eckart, I saw people running, I saw firefighters running, I saw families running for their lives and evacuating,” she said. “People were crying, people were screaming. There was a lot of excitement.”

Santos said she saw the family “joyfully” celebrating on the porch earlier Saturday.

“It hurts my heart for these kids, being so young,” she said.

As the night grew cooler, the birthday party moved indoors, said 12-year-old Brihanna Rodriguez, who attended the same school as the victims.

“They were dancing and listening to music,” she said. “Later we heard the ambulance…we went outside and heard screaming.”

Roger Leon, Newark’s school superintendent, said counselors from the district’s crisis team would be available for students and staff. District officials are also helping other students and their families displaced by the fire.

The fire remains under investigation by the District Attorney’s Office’s Crime Scene Investigations Bureau and investigators from the Newark Fire Department.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today NJ.com.