A 7-year-old Queens boy who died as he frantically tried to escape a raging blaze in his home Wednesday morning might have made it out alive if the house had smoke detectors, officials said.
Firefighters found Christopher Miller, 7, at the foot of the stairs near the first-floor living room —just feet away from the outside door.
“He was on his way out, but he just couldn’t make it,” Deputy Chief Mark Ferran said of the boy, who had been asleep when the flames engulfed the East Elmhurst home.
“There was too much smoke at that time and he was overcome.”
Had he been awakened earlier, he might have had time to escape before the smoke got too dense.
Ferran said the tragedy should be a reminder to people to install working alarms.
Officials said two house guests had started a blaze in the home’s fireplace, and gone to sleep without extinguishing it.
At about 9 a.m., when everyone was asleep, it somehow spread to furnishings and Christmas decorations.
A neighbor told The Post he saw the boy’s mother, who had not been at home, arriving at about 10 a.m. to see her home surrounded by firefighters.
“My son! My son!” she screamed before medics drove her away in an ambulance.
Christopher’s 12-year-old brother, Matthew, was seriously injured but made it out of the inferno alive. Cops said he was helped out a back door by the two guests.
He was in serious but stable condition at New York Hospital with second degree burns.
The children’s grandfather, who was in the basement, also escaped.
Neighbor Marie Bouzy dashed to the front door of the family’s brick home, but it was too late.
“The smoke was too much,” Bouzy said. “I heard voices, like children’s voices. I wish I could have gone inside and taken the kids out myself. It’s terrible.”
Some 50 firefighters responded’ three of them sustained minor injuries.
Additional reporting by Kathryn Cusma