A woman was killed and three family members were hospitalized after a fire ripped through a home in Beltsville, Maryland, on New Year's Day.
Two families were living in the home at the time the fire broke out.
Smoke poured from the single-family home on Montgomery Road in Beltsville as the 911 call came in just before noon Friday. The fire department arrived within minutes, but it was too late for at least one of the family members inside. A woman was found dead in the basement.
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Daniel Pavon, a chaplain for the Rockville City Police Department, lives just a few doors away. He saw his neighbors running out of the burning home, barefoot with just the shirts on their backs.
"It gets to your heart and then you get into that stamina, I got to do something, because that's my job as a chaplain," said Pavon.
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He and other neighbors jumped into action.
"So I came immediately, and the next-door neighbor was kind enough to shelter them," Pavon said. "And I went back home and got some blankets and a jacket ... and some shoes and socks. They needed it, because they were all barefoot."
Three people were taken to a hospital, including an 8-year-old girl.
An 18-year-old woman suffered serious, life-threatening injuries. The child and a 38-year-old man also have serious, but not life-threatening, injuries, said Michael Yourishin of Prince George's County Fire.
The worst of the fire was in the basement level.
The fire has been extinguished, and the investigation is underway to find out what started the fire that left two families without a home and mourning the loss of one of their loved ones.
"We have 10 residents of the home displaced. Red Cross is on the scene," Yourishin said.
