Mom, 2 kids hurt in a two-second alarm fire in Newark on Bergen Street

NEWARK, N.J. (WABC) -- Dozens of families were forced out of their homes in Newark by flames that quickly spread to three buildings early Friday morning.

The fast-moving fire started on Bergen Street just before 4 a.m., injuring several people, including children, and prompting rescues.

By mid-afternoon, families who lived in the damaged buildings were packing up what they could fish out of debris and ashes, including a single picture left for one family.

"It's very important to me," tenant Adwola Adole said. "I've lost everything. All my paperwork is gone. I could not save anything."

The fire began in the third-floor apartment of a three-story house, where a two children, ages 9 and 4, and their parents were rescued by firefighters. The children and mother are in critical condition.

Tenants said they smelled burning plastic, which was vinyl siding melting under intense heat.

"Those houses are very old houses," tenant Henry Fleming said. "When they go up..they go up."

Fleming said family members in his apartment lost about $5,000 in cash total they'd had for rent and upcoming car payments, all the money burned to ashes.

Still, he was happy to have the only picture he has left, of his kids as youngsters.

"I have three of them, boys," he said. "And they are too young. We have to rush them out...And they are OK, we thank God."

Two firefighters were injured, with one suffering cuts and the other a knee injury.

The fire left 39 people -- 22 adults and 17 children -- displaced.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.