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Fire Kills 3, Including Child, In Easton

By Jenn Bernstein

EASTON, Pa. (CBS) -- Three people, including a young child, were killed during a house fire in Northampton County early Monday.

A few members of the Soto family didn't even have time to put on their shoes when they ran out of their home on Spring Garden Street in Easton.

But they did have time to help save two lives early Monday morning.

"The grandmother had a little baby, and she's out the window, screaming 'kids, kids! Fire!,'" said neighbor Jason Soto.

Jason Soto already got his entire family out of the right side of these apartment homes, but ran back inside to help the woman and her baby who were on a third floor ledge.

"I hop out on the little ledge that connects the two houses, I grab the little kid from the grandmother, hand him to my son, my son runs back downstairs, runs outside the house with the kid," explained Soto. "And I'm trying to help the lady, she's yelling 'there's another kid, there's another kid'"

By then, heavy smoke was pouring out the window.

Soto had to pull the woman to his side.

Three people died from this fire; a four-year-old boy and a man were pronounced dead on the scene. A woman was later pronounced dead at the Burn Recovery Center located at Lehigh Valley Hospital.

"We didn't find any working smoke detectors in the home," said Easton Fire Chief John Bast.

The cause is still under investigation, but the Chief says it started on the second floor in the area of the clothes dryer, which was running.

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