A loving mother and her two daughters perished in a Brooklyn fire on Saturday, leaving bereaved loved ones searching for explanations.
In the third-floor apartment on Gates Avenue near Tompkins Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant, where fire broke out in the family’s kitchen just after 5 a.m. Friday, Danielle Havens, 48, and her daughters, Journee Miles, 11, and Kelsee Miles, 9, were discovered, according to authorities.
I require some time. Devastated father Kwan Joseph Miles told The Post on Saturday, “I’m going through a lot.
Danielle Havens’ sister Dawn Havens echoed her, “I can’t talk to you right now.”
Despite the heroic efforts of the FDNY, who claimed that the fatal fire was a tragic accident, the cherished mother and daughters never stood a chance.
The blaze was “accidental due to carelessness in the kitchen,” according to the FDNY Fire Marshals. There was no smoke alarm present, the department tweeted.
A next-door neighbor claimed that although Havens and her daughters had lived in the Bed-Stuy house for less than a year, the family had many happy times there.
The sidewalk still had hopscotch game debris.
Mom and daughters had fun posing for amusing photos.
According to Havens on Facebook, Journee was a child model and had pictures of her in the baby book “Love is” edited by the former first lady of New York City, Chirlane McCray.
In addition to the book McCray edited, which was distributed to 200,000 city families to encourage reading around 2015, younger modeling images of Journee also appeared in Essence magazine and a Mastercard advertisement.
Another photo shows the girls enjoying ballet and posing for the camera.
“Havens always involved her kids in whatever she did. Darlene Brown-Bezear, the grieving neighbor next door, remarked that she was beautiful.
At a press conference on Friday, FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh told reporters that firefighters arrived at the burning building in three minutes and found “heavy smoke and fire.”
According to Chief of EMS Michael Fields, the mother and children who perished had burns, smoke inhalation, and were not breathing when first responders arrived.
They were intubated and given hydroxocobalamin, a drug designed to reverse the effects of cyanide overdoses, according to Fields.
The mother and daughters were taken to Woodhull Medical Center, where they were pronounced dead, according to officials.
The fire was brought under control around 5:45 a.m.
According to one neighbor, only the family dog survived the fire.
The FDNY Fire Safety Education Unit was on the scene until early afternoon Saturday, sharing safety information in response to the fatal all-hands fire on Friday.
Mayor Eric Adams on Friday noted the intensity of a mother’s love for her children and expressed that the tragedy touched the entire city.
“Losing two children, just our hearts go out to the family, the neighbors, the block,” he said.