The tributes are growing at the home in Lalor Park in Blacktown in Sydney’s west, amid the allegation a father tried to stop emergency services from saving them.
“Rest in peace sweet innocent children,” one message left on a bunch of flowers said.
Police and investigators are combing the Lalor Park home after the blaze, which started around 1am yesterday.
Two boys, aged three and six, were given CPR on the street but they couldn’t be saved and a baby girl was found dead inside the home.
As rescue crews, emergency services and locals battled powerful flames, Dean Heasman, 28, was allegedly pushing the children back in.
A nine-year-old girl and three boys aged four, seven and 11 were taken to Westmead Hospital, where a 29-year-old woman was also treated.
Meanwhile, a neighbour who ran into the burning house to save four children says he is not a hero.
Jarrod Hawkins said he knew his daughter’s school friend was inside.
He barged his way in and got three boys and a girl out of the home before emergency services arrived.
“There was too much smoke, I couldn’t see a thing, but I knew the daughter was inside.”
He told the paper he followed the sound of a child’s cough through the smoke.
He grabbed a girl and carried her out onto the footpath, before re-entering three more times to rescue three of her brothers.
Neighbours called him a hero for what he did.
“I don’t buy into that… I just reacted with what I could do,” he said.
Heasman remains in an induced coma under police guard.
“We’re alleging that 28-year-old man took direct actions to prevent the rescue of those young lives that were lost,” NSW Police Homicide Squad Superintendent Danny Doherty said.
Neighbours said the surviving children allegedly told them the man ordered them to stay inside the home as it burned, one of them claiming he tried to fight in a bid to save his siblings
There are claims Heasman was holding the front door shut in a desperate tug-of-war with police.
Residents claimed they saw the man attempting to drag the terrified children back inside.
They said he was shouting “leave me here to die”.
The couple who lived at the house had been together for about 10 years.
A Facebook post suggests they are engaged.
There are also reports police were called to the home two weeks ago to conduct a welfare check on the children.
