“I can’t believe this,” said Iris Sydney after six members of her family were killed when a fast-moving fire ripped through a single-family home in Newark this past Sunday. “But I’m telling you, I buried my husband. I buried my son, and now this is my grandchild. I feel it. I feel it in my heart. This is a sad day for the Sydney family. It is.”
The three people who lived in the house were Reginald Stewart, 58; his wife, Salome Stewart, 58; and Stewart’s daughter, Natasha Kinsale, 35.
The fire spread to another residence, destroying both homes. However, everyone in the second home managed to escape safely, authorities said.
The other three victims were Zion Forbes, 11, who lived in nearby East Orange; Noreen Johnson, 43; and Johnson’s son, Stephen Sydney, 15. Johnson and her son were visiting from Crawford, Ga.
When Iris Sydney returned home from church, a sheriff’s deputy was standing at her door and gave her the sad news. She said both sides of Stephen’s family have ties to the Caribbean. She is a native of Georgetown, Guyana, and Stephen Sydney had been scheduled to go with his maternal grandmother on Wednesday to her native Trinidad and Tobago for a monthlong visit with family there.
Police said that there were no working smoke detectors in the house.
The investigation continues into the cause of the blaze, though Acting Essex County Prosecutor Carolyn Murray said Sunday’s fire in Newark did not appear to be suspicious.
Said Murray, “It appears this family cared about the neighborhood, and they cared about the house.”