Christmas Fire Kills NJ Boy

A three-year-old boy was killed in a Christmas day blaze in South Jersey.

The fire broke out around 6:30 p.m. Thursday in a home on Camden Avenue in Pennsauken.

Alexander Armani Gonzalez was playing with a candle by the Christmas tree when it caught fire, investigators said Friday.

"It went up so fast...seconds," Gonzalez's mother's boyfriend Emmanuel Phillips told the Courier-Post Friday. Phillips told the paper that he was sitting in a car smoking when he saw the flames and tried to make it inside, but was unable due to the intensity of the blaze.

"I'm sorry I couldn't save my stepson," Phillips said to Courier-Post reporter Kristy Davies.

Firefighters said they found the boy trapped in the blaze. He later died at Cooper University Hospital.

The child's grandmother was also taken to the hospitalized with burns. No word on her condition.

Contact Us