A fire set by lighter and paper engulfed a modest duplex Sunday afternoon, driving away rescuers who tried but failed to save a trapped child.
One-year-old Keosha Anderson and four siblings shared the beige stucco duplex in Fort Lauderdale with their grandmother and great-grandmother. Except for a police officer who braved flames and smoke to save her, Keosha was the only one harmed.
The blaze started shortly after 3 p.m. Keosha’s great-grandmother, Jewell Cooper, said she was on the phone when she noticed two of Keosha’s brothers, Braxton Medley, 5, and Adrian Medley, 4, setting a piece of paper on fire with a cigarette lighter.
“They started the paper afire and then called me,” said Cooper, 71.
Two other children, Andrew Medley, 11/2, and Aleecia Medley, 7, were in the house at the time.
Police and fire spokesmen said Cooper and the other children hurried out the back door for help. By the time they returned with neighbors, the fire was too fierce to rescue Keosha.
“I tried to get her, but I couldn’t get her,” a shaken Cooper said later.
“It was a very intense, very hot fire,” said Fort Lauderdale fire spokesman Steve McInerney. The bedroom where Keosha lay was enveloped in flames, he added.
The first police officer on the scene, Dorothy Littlefield, tried three times to find the child.
“Bystanders waved me in,” Littlefield, 43, recalled from the Broward General Medical Center emergency room, where she was being treated for smoke inhalation.
“I started crawling on the floor, feeling my way around. I came out and ran to my car to get a flashlight,” she said. “The smoke was so heavy.”
Thinking there were two children inside, Littlefield made a final attempt with her car’s fire extinguisher. The smoke drove her back.
“I wanted to save them, but my body just wouldn’t let me,” she said.
“There was no getting in that door because of the heavy smoke,” McInerney said.
When firefighters arrived, they saw a crowd of about 100 shouting neighbors breaking the glass and screen on the window of Keosha’s bedroom. Firefighters Susan Lopez and Melanie Weir clambered through the window and crawled to the helpless baby.
Too late, they found her. She was in an alcove under some clothes, curled in a fetal position. She was taken from the house and pronounced dead.
Keosha’s grandmother, Shirley Cooper, 41, is legal guardian for the five children. She was at work when the blaze erupted. She came home to learn her youngest granddaughter was dead.
“My baby!” she cried.
Shirley Cooper tore at her clothes and sobbed. Friends and relatives restrained her as she thrashed on the ground next to a police car.
After the fire, Keosha’s brothers and sisters went to stay with relatives. Police wouldn’t identify the mother of the children because they haven’t found her yet.
Police and firefighters nursed bitter thoughts.
“Many of them are very upset that we got there but didn’t come away saving anyone,” McInerney said. “We gave it 100 percent, unfortunately today 100 percent wasn’t good enough.”
Said Littlefield: “I’m very hurt I couldn’t save a child’s life. When I saw that tiny thing be taken out …”
