Two Sent to Hospital after Four-year-old Sets Bedding On Fire

A pre-schooler playing with a lighter caused a mattress fire at the Charles Place apartments Thursday afternoon that sent two men to MidState hospital with minor injuries and forced an evacuation of the entire building, fire officials said.

The fire started in Apartment 225 of the building at around 4 p.m., when a 4-year-old child ignited the blankets on a bed with a lighter, Meriden Deputy Fire Marshal John Yacovino said.

“He probably held a lighter to the mattress as well,” Yacovino said. “It burnt up the lower left hand corner of the mattress.”

The fire was not big enough to set off the sprinklers, Deputy Fire Chief David M. Bowen said at the scene, but smoke poured out into the hallway, and triggered the building’s fire alarm.

A man who was in the apartment with the child apparently tried to put the fire out, causing minor burns to his hand and arm, Bowen said. A neighbor also came over to help put out the fire and suffered some smoke inhalation.  

These two men, one in his 40’s and one in his 20’s were both taken to MidState Medical Center by ambulance. Officials said injuries appeared minor and that the men were likely not in danger. A tenant who declined to give her name said one of the men, passing on a stretcher, told her he was “OK.” The child, Yacovino said, was unharmed.

A 911 call alerted firefighters to the scene, who extinguished the mattress when they arrived.

Residents were initially evacuated, but allowed back into the building later. There was no damage to the building, Bowen said. Fire Engines left the scene at around 5 p.m.