MONTEGO BAY, St James – A four-year-old girl whose stepfather forgot she was still inside a burning building on Monday evening became the latest fire statistic, ironically as the country kicked off Fire Safety Awareness Week.

Little Renae Brown’s charred remains were found by firefighters when they performed cooling down operations on the five-bedroom board tenement along King Street in this western city where the family lived.

Renae’s 26-year-old stepfather Roland Forbes – in whose care the child was left while her mother went to work in Kingston – said he, like others in the tenement, ran from the building when they realised there was a fire, and by the time he realised Renae was still in the house and attempted to rescue her, the building was already engulfed.

Forbes was treated at hospital for minor burns.

“When me realise and find out say the baby inside I ran back to save her but me have to run back outside because the whole a inside catch a fire now. Right now me frustrated and stress out but me have fe give God thanks me have me life still,” Forbes told the Observer afterwards.

The police reported that sometime Monday evening an alarm was raised that there was a fire inside the tenement and occupants – including the little girl’s stepfather – ran from the building.

Forbes said after discovering that Renae was trapped inside the blazing building he attempted to rescue her but it was too late as the entire building was engulfed.

The little girl’s sister, 16-year-old Antonette Ford, who was close by when the fire started, also failed in her attempt to rescue her sibling. She said that she and another relative had just left the house when they heard about the fire.

Ford told the Observer that she managed to rescue her brother and another sister but, like her stepfather, was unable to save little Renae.

“Two little boys come and tell we say fire inna the lane, but we never know say is in the lane where we live because we just left there, so we didn’t believe, and when we run come here we see the fire,” a distraught Ford said as tears rolled down her cheeks.

“We tek out me brother and another sister. When me ask weh Renae deh, them say she inna the fire. But when me reach the door the fire and smoke was too much, me couldn’t go in. And me ask weh Wasp (stepfather) deh, and them say him inna the fire and then me start cry.”

She said her stepfather later managed to escape the burning house.

Shortly after that firefighters arrived and found the charred remains of the little girl among the rubble.

Investigators were up to late yesterday probing the circumstances which led to the fire.