One of the most terrifying moments teacher Emily Espinal and her family ever experienced was a fire that spread from a next-door neighbor’s attic to their home last month. A few days into 2021, the bedroom of Espinal’s 6-year-old daughter Mia — filled with newly opened Christmas presents on the second floor — was extensively damaged in the middle of the night. Espinal and her family made it out of their house, unharmed, on Jan. 3.
On Sep. 13, the Holy Child Jesus Academy community gathered for its annual back-to-school barbeque, where they also paid special tribute to members of a local family who perished in a house fire over the summer.
At an emotional bilingual funeral Mass at Holy Child Jesus Church in Richmond Hill on July 29, family, friends and parishioners mourned the deaths of parishioners Silvia Umana and her children, Gilbert and Guadalupe, who perished in a July 21 house fire.
Fires in New York City happen fairly often, causing widespread damage, displacement from homes and, sometimes, tragedy.
A fire on the first floor of a Richmond Hill, Queens house took the lives of a mother and her seven-year-old daughter on Sunday, July 21.
