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NEW YORK — A family of five, including three children as young as 15 months, died in a blaze Saturday that filled an apartment with thick black smoke and kept the victims from escaping through the front door, fire officials said.
A 10-year-old boy who survived was in critical condition after the fire in a public housing complex in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. The boy was found with two other family members in a back bedroom, while the rest of the family sought refuge in a bathroom, officials said.
The cause of the fire, which began in the kitchen of the sixth-floor apartment, was under investigation. But the Fire Department said the apartment’s smoke detector had been unplugged and the battery removed.
