Four Children Hospitalized After Playing with Fire Inside Central Fresno Apartment

At University Village Apartments near Barstow and Cedar avenues in central Fresno, juveniles playing with fire inside an apartment unit left two people burned and one transported to the hospital with serious burn injuries, authorities said. Fresno Fire Department spokesperson Joshua Sellers is named in local reports about the early-morning response.

Firefighters responded to an initial report of a building fire around 6:20 a.m. Friday at the complex, and responders determined “juveniles had been playing with fire inside an apartment unit,” the Fresno Bee account republished by Yahoo and Newsbreak said. The accounts state two people suffered burns and one was taken to a hospital with serious burn injuries; their condition was described as unknown at the time of those reports.

A separate late-night incident at the Los Flores Apartments near First Street and Shields Avenue appears to be distinct. ABC30 reported a Thursday night fire that began about 7:30 p.m., when crews “burst into an apartment to rescue a 5-year-old girl.” ABC30 said the 5-year-old remained in critical condition at the hospital, a 7-year-old and the child’s mother were also taken to the hospital, and a firefighter who helped with the rescue was treated and released for burns.

ABC30 reported additional impacts at the First and Shields location: the fire started on the second story, displaced 10 people, and killed two dogs. The American Red Cross was searching for temporary homes for those displaced, ABC30 reported, and investigators were still working to determine the cause. Fresno Fire Department spokesperson Josh Sellers was quoted by ABC30: “Anytime there's reports somebody's trapped inside a structure fire the number one priority is life safety.”

Social media and aggregators show related but different accounts. An Instagram caption referenced a Thursday afternoon house fire in central Fresno in which “seven people, including four children, escaped” and sought community help. LiveUMap listed an entry with date markers including 18 February 2026 for the incident headlines, reflecting the cluster of reports across Thursday and Friday.

The Fresno Bee/Yahoo/Newsbreak account (University Village Apartments, about 6:20 a.m. Friday) and the ABC30 account (Los Flores Apartments, about 7:30 p.m. Thursday) differ in time, location, casualty counts and displacement, and therefore appear to describe at least two distinct events unless officials confirm otherwise. Officials have not released victim names, and ages were reported only in the ABC30 story for the Thursday night incident. Investigators and emergency agencies have not provided a consolidated statement reconciling the differing accounts at the time of the reports.