DHAKA: Seven children were killed early in a Brooklyn house fire in New York that was apparently sparked by a hot plate meant to keep food warm over the Sabbath on Saturday.

New York’s fire commissioner Daniel Nigro said this which reports the CNN.

The four boys and three girls -- siblings ranging in age from 5 to 16 -- were in upstairs bedrooms when the unattended hot plate apparently malfunctioned in the kitchen starting a fire that swept up from the first floor shortly after midnight in Brooklyn’s south-central Midwood section, he said.

The fire’s only survivors, the victims’ 45-year-old mother, Gayle Sassoon, and her 14-year-old daughter.

Both jumped from second-floor widows to escape and were being treated for burns and smoke inhalation, police said. The mother was in critical condition; the status of her daughter wasn't known.

Investigators believe the family was trying to keep food warm with a ‘hot plate’ device in the kitchen as part of their observance of the Sabbath, Nigro said.

BDST: 1116 HRS, MAR 22, 2015