NEW YORK _ A raging Harlem cooking fire wiped out a family of six early Wednesday, including four children, officials said.
Mom Andrea Pollidore, 45, died alongside her 32-year-old stepson, Matt Abdularauph, and four of her kids after the fire broke out about 1:40 a.m. inside their three-bedroom apartment on the fifth floor of the New York City Housing Authority's Frederick E. Samuel Houses.
The youngest victim was 3-year-old Elijah.
"He was smart, a quick learner," devastated dad Jean Belot said when he visited the burned out building after getting the tragic news. "I'm not in a good state of mind."
Also killed in the fire was Elijah's 11-year-old sister, Nakaira; 6-year-old sister, Brooklyn; and 8-year-old brother, Andre, according to family friends.
All six victims were found dead inside two bedrooms, officials said.
Pollidore's daughter Raven Reyes, 27, who was not at the apartment during the fire, said the family is devastated.
"I'm one of my mom's oldest kids," Reyes said. "All my little brothers and sisters, my mom, and even my stepbrother passed away. They were all good people. My little brothers and sisters, they just were perfect. They were amazing.
"I met him when I was like 16," she said of stepbrother Abdularauph. "He's been in my life ever since _ even though my mom and his dad got separated. He's always been around. He lived there too.
"I wish this didn't happen. It's just unbelievable," she added. "I just want them to know that I love them so much."
Reyes said her mom survived a fire in 2013 on Jefferson Avenue between Tompkins and Throop avenues in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. The person living underneath her mom caused it, according to the daughter, and Pollidore suffered first-degree burns, memory loss and was in a coma.
The daughter said her mom had an associate's degree in nursing.
Sources said it is likely Pollidore went to bed with the stove still on. The family was asleep when the fire broke out and it was too late for them to get to the door or fire escape. Fire officials are also investigating the possibility that the mother disabled the alarms sometime before the fire broke out.
An emotional Mayor Bill de Blasio said the entire city was struck by the fire.
"This is a gut-wrenching moment for all of us," de Blasio said in a news conference at the scene. "As a father, thinking that yesterday evening four children were going to bed and they're gone now is very, very painful."
Friends of the family were left reeling from the loss.
"They are good to us," one friend who declined to give his name said. "The daughter was my daughter's best friend. I saw them yelling out the window. ... They all died in that corner room."
The family friend said the 11-year-old daughter frequently cooked for the rest of the family.
"One of them was cooking and left the oil on," the friend speculated.
Firefighters arrived in three minutes but the blaze quickly spread from the stove top, trapping the family.
"We were met at the door of that apartment with fire," said FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro. "The entire apartment was involved. They aggressively move in, extinguishing the fire as they did. They reached the two rear bedrooms (where) we found six occupants of that apartment deceased."
Flames poured from five windows in the apartment on two sides of the building. "As aggressive as the members could be, they were not able to reach those occupants," Nigro said. "Every bit of that apartment had fire damage."
The fire also damaged the apartment above but nobody there was hurt.
"It's never easy for our members," Nigro added. "We're in the business of saving lives. It's very difficult for our members."
A smoke alarm was installed in the apartment in June 2017, NYCHA officials said. But tenants who escaped the building said they heard no alarms.
"We want to investigate that very question," de Blasio said. "There had been smoke alarms installed, it had been tested this January. The whole reason for the fire department investigation is understanding everything that happened."
The blaze was the most deadly in the city since December 2017, when a 3-year-old boy playing with an oven sparked an inferno on Prospect Avenue in the Belmont section of the Bronx that killed 13 people.
Neighbors described escaping from Wednesday's fast-moving fire.
"I heard glass shattering," said Claudette Grant, 33, who lives on the floor below the doomed family.
"Then I heard kids screaming, 'Help, there's a fire, there's a fire!' I went out to try to look out the window but before I could get to my living room my neighbors were knocking on the door saying, 'Everybody get out of the building, get out of the building!' I woke everyone up, I got my baby, and we went outside."
"I used to see her picking the kids up from school," she said of Pollidore. "I'd see them at the store. She was a giving mother. She would see me with my toddler and she'd be like, 'How old is your baby? I have clothes for him, is he a 3T yet? I'm gonna come over anyway and give you some clothes.' I thought she was caring."
Grant escaped with her 20-month-old son, 12-year-old daughter and 11-year-old niece. She was shocked to learn her upstairs neighbors weren't so lucky.
"It's still devastating,' she said. "And to think, Mother's Day is this weekend."
