Miami, FL Apartment Fire, Feb 1966

10 DIE IN MIAMI BLAZE.

Miami, Fla. -- (AP) -- Fire and police officials blamed the Miami blaze -- in a 40-year-old building in the city's Negro slum area -- on a kerosene stove explosion. Four of the dead children were from one family and three from another. The parents escaped.
"There was lots of hollering and screaming and people running outside, and it was the screams of the children that got me the most," said VERNON L. WARD, a neighborhood resident.
"The thing I never can forget is, one little girl's face at the window screaming 'Momma, save me, momma, save me,'" WARD said.
Police Sgt. Dennis Watkins said WILLIE ROSS, 61, one of the victims, alone in a downstairs rear room, apparently had been drinking and "fooling around with the kerosene heater."
"We don't know whether he tipped it over and spilled some kerosene and it then caught fire or whether he just knocked it over and it exploded," Watkins said.
The other dead: WILL MITCHELL, 60; W. D. SHAFTON, 35; FRANK PEARSON, JR., 6, his brother CHRISTOPHER, 5, and two sisters, COLLIER, 18 months, and SYLVIA, 4; JOHN WASHINGTON, 6, his brother RONNIE, 17 months, and his sister SHIELA, 4.

Syracuse Herald Journal New York 1966-02-07
__________________

Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!