Firefighters Find Girls Hiding In Burning Miami Home

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MIAMI (CBSMiami) - Two young girls are recovering after they were found hiding in a bedroom while a fire spread through their Miami home.

Relatives of four year old twin sisters say they believe the fire was deliberately set by one of their relatives.

Panicked neighbors said they heard the girls screaming as the fire spread though the home at 640 NW 49th Street, just before 9 p.m.

"I heard glass breaking so I was thinking there were other people in the house trying to get out through the windows," said neighbor Jason Williams.

Williams said he called 911 and tried to find a way inside the burning house.

"When kids are involved its hard to keep your composure, you don't know whether you can help them or not, because the house was really dark even though it was lit up (by fire)," said Williams.

A fire crew happened to be in the area when the call went out and they were at the home within one minute.

"They could hear voices and breathing in a bedroom which was locked. So they knocked the door down and started searching. They found the two kids hiding under the sheets on a bed," said Miami Fire Rescue Assistant Chief Pete Gomez.

The girls were rescued and taken to the Jackson Memorial Hospital where they were treated for smoke inhalation. Both are expected to make a full recovery.

"These kids were saved by the grace of God. Had they been in there a little longer, the fire escalates, more smokes gets exhibited, and they breath in more smoke, they could have possibly been dead," said Gomez.

The grandmother of the twins said she thinks her 29-year-old son Bernard Ethridge started the fire in the home with his nieces inside and then took off.

"He is not stable. He's a paranoid schizophrenic," she said.

She said she's been trying to get the court system to keep her son in custody for mental treatment.

"I begged and I pleaded with the court no to release him and they told me they was going to release him. They released him and he came and burned down the house," she said.

Arson investigators are looking into whether the fire was intentionally set. No arrests have been made.