Firefighters tried to save two young boys who hid in a bathtub to escape the flames, but they just couldn't do it. Mario Angel Cisneros, 5, and David Alexander Cisneros, 4, died at Arrowhead Regional Hospital.
Neighbors had called 911 when they saw flames coming from the home in the 1400 block of Lilac Avenue. The smoke blanketed the neighborhood.
The boys' grandmother, Irma Cisneros Delgado, said that one of the children awakened her and her husband once they smelled smoke.
"There was so much smoke, we couldn't see anything," she said. "We hit the couch and my grandson said, 'How am I doing, grandma?' I said, 'Just crawl.'"
Those were the last words she'd hear from the boys, who had made their way into the family's bathroom with a puppy and tried to save themselves in the tub.
"They didn't cry," said grandfather Humberto Delgado. "I didn't hear crying or anything."
He had broken back into the home through a back window to save a 1-year-old girl still inside, and in doing so, suffered major burn wounds.
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Firefighters say 11 people lived in the home: seven adults and four children. Very little is left to salvage. And this is only the beginning of the family's problems.
"We don't have a job," said Irma Cisneros Delgado. "We're behind on the bills and now we have to bury not one but two kids."
A charitable fund has been set up at local Chase Banks. Investigators have yet to pinpoint a cause for the fire.
