By JOHN DOYLE, JAMIE SCHRAM and KERRY WILLS
Last updated: 9:28 pm
October 13, 2008
Posted: 11:37 am
October 13, 2008
Fire marshals believe that a child playing with matches or a lighter accidentally set off the horrific Chelsea apartment blaze that killed five family members and left a 10-year-old boy clinging to life.
The marshals found the remnants of matches or a lighter near the kitchen table, where papers atop it fueled the blaze, fire officials said yesterday.
Neighbors also told investigators that one of the children had played with fire in the past and had ignited at least one small fire, sources said.
Relatives bitterly disputed that.
"There's no way they played with matches," Leonel Balbuena said. "If they say it was matches, they need real proof."
Balbuena, 33, said the children were asleep Saturday morning when fire raced through their seventh-floor apartment in the Robert Fulton Houses on West 18th Street at Ninth Avenue.
He is the brother of Delkis Balbuena, who perished in the blaze along with her husband, Joa Valdez, and their daughters, 8-year-old Nancy Joa Balbuena, 2-year-old Bet-el Joa Balbuena and 15-month-old Ruth Joa Balbuena. All died of smoke inhalation.
The kids' brother, Jonzan Joa-Balbuena, 10, barely survived and remains in a coma at Jacobi Medical Center, his uncle said.
As if the tragic deaths weren't enough, mourning relatives are now feuding over where to bury the victims, said community activist Awilda Cordero.
She said the father's family wants him to be buried in Chinatown, while the mom's kin hope to lay her to rest in Washington Heights.
Another community activist in the building blamed the tragedy on the way the apartment is laid out - with the kitchen so close to the only entrance and exit.
"It's a death trap the way the layout is," Miguel Acevedo said.
Relatives are praying for a dramatic recovery for Jonzan.
"I believe God will do a miracle," said Kilsing Alcequinez, a second cousin.
Leonel Balbuena said the family emigrated from the Dominican Republic about 12 years ago.
Neighbors on West 18th Street recall them as a tight-knit family.
"She loved those kids. She was a good mother," Pedro Mercado, 18, who lived across the hall, said of Delkis Balbuena.
"You'd see them growing up. I always used to compliment them on how beautiful they were getting," said another neighbor, Sade Creer, 22.
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