Mother, Two Sons Die in Queens House Fire
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A mother and her two young sons died after a three-alarm fire consumed a private home early yesterday morning in Rosedale, Queens.
The victims, identified as Renee Chong, 40, a captain in the Department of Correction, and her two children, Noah, 7, and Elliot, 9, were found in the rubble after the top story of the building collapsed.
Chong’s mother, Josephine Chong, 80, said investigators told her Renee Chong’s body had been found stretched over the body of one of her sons. “She was more than a mother, and that’s what they found,” she said. “She was protecting them.”
Investigators said the fire was sparked by an electrical Jacuzzi motor and quickly spread across the floors of the building’s second story. According to police officials, the Jacuzzi fell through to the first floor of the building.
One of the boys was sleeping alone on the third story and was found after his mother and brother, who were sleeping downstairs.
Neighbors said they were awakened by acrid smoke blowing out of the vinyl-sided duplex before dawn yesterday morning, and several said they attempted to bang on the doors of the house to wake up the family.
“I wanted to break the door down,” a neighbor, Teo Villas, 35, said. “There was just too much smoke.”
A tenant, a blind man identified by neighbors as Kendrick Gibson, 38, lived on the first floor but was away at the time of the fire.
The fire department arrived at the house, at 262–16 149th Rd., within five minutes of the first 911call at 4:58 a.m., fire officials said. The back half of the top floor collapsed about half an hour later, fire officials said.
No firefighters were caught inside, but seven firefighters sustained minor injuries and were treated at area hospitals. The fire was declared under control at 6:16 a.m.
Renee Chong was born in Jamaica and was raising her two children alone. The two boys attended a private Montessori school and were often seen riding their bikes and playing with the family’s two small dogs in front of house, neighbors said.
In a statement, a Correction commissioner, Martin Horn, called Chong a “vivacious and caring person.”
Chong’s mother said she was studying for a promotion.
“Now she’s gone, but she’ll get that promotion in heaven,” she said.
