A family of five is seriously hurt after a two-alarm fire rips through their Mission District apartment while they were sleeping. Three of them, including children, are fighting for their lives. NBC Bay Area’s Stephanie Chuang reports.
A family of five were hurt, some of them critically, in a two-alarm fire that tore through an apartment building on top of a liquor store they own on Wednesday morning in San Francisco’s Mission District.
San Francisco Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White told NBC Bay Area that a father and his son and daughter were were badly hurt and taken to San Francisco General Hospital with possible life-threatening injuries, though relatives said later they are "OK."
A mother and her son were taken in "very serious" condition to St. Francis Hospital.
All five were rescued through windows, out the front door or the back after the fire was reported before 4:30 a.m. at 3049 24th Street above Maurice's Corner Liquors. A cousin said the children are 17, 12 and 6. A relative told NBC Bay Area the family members are from Yemen, and have other children back in their home country.
"It was a tricky rescue," Hayes-White said. "It was a difficult scene. There was screaming and yelling. It was emotional."
Two other people were found padlocked inside the liquor store located below the apartment, Hayes-White said, and they were sleeping illegally inside on mattresses. A cousin said the pair worked in the store. Firefighters had to cut the padlocks off the door to rescue them.
Neighbors said the family owned the liquor store below the apartment. "It's awful and said," Jim Meek said. "They're entrepreneurs and it's sad to see them suffer a loss."
Local
An arson team is investigating the cause of the blaze.
