as news 4's derek ward reports now, it's a tragedy that has left firefighters shaken. >> reporter: the scene on griffin street shortly after firefighters arrived. neighbors who called 911 said they were awakened by an explosion, and the nobodying e smoke and flames coming from the house at 2411 griffin. one neighbor said a resident at the house was running frantically from window to window trying to get other occupants out of the burning building. >> when firefighters arrived, they did find heavy fire coming from the front of the house. they initiated a quick, aggressive interior attack as well as a search and did pull out three victims all being pulseless and not breathing. >> reporter: they immediately began trying to revive the victims, two women, and a 6-year-old boy. the child did not survive. the women were stabilized and remain hospitalized with injuries, burns, and smoke inhalation. firefighters were shaken by the loss. >> it's always a tragedy when someone dies in a fire. it's only compounded when a child is involved. especially around this time of year. that compounds it even

we saw from derek ward's story a lot of people turning their space heaters on. it is an important thing to do. change that battery in the smoke detector. it will save somebody's life for sure. >> it only takes about ten minutes. we're going to have the fire chief in on our show a little later to talk more about that. thanks, chuck. >>> keep your eye out for some big changes on the beltway this weekend if you drive the hot lanes construction zone in northern virginia. overnight v.crews began shifting the inner loop lanes from their temporary con tir nation to their permanent lanes. you can see cars moving at speed on the beltway. orchanges drivers will notice the route 123 clover leaves will re-open putting an end to usual temporary ramps. it means the lighted left turn lane to go to the northbound beltway will go away as well. the progress can't come soon enough for construction weary commuters. >> coming up this way is often a hassle because they're changing the exits so often sometimes you don't know which exit you're supposed to take. it will be really nice f

derek ward joins us live from the center of d.c.'s small business saturday in adams morgan with more. >> reporter: good morning. we've been hearing a lot object black friday and cyber monday. today small business saturday is an effort to see that the small businesses are not left out. take a look around, this is typical of small businesses here in the district. that was started last year back in 2010. facebook hits are any indication this was liked bi .5 million people. folks that have been tracking this say it represented a 28% increase in business for small businesses. there was another study that looked at a period between 1990 and 2009 and found while local restaurants in the city maintain their marketing share they may have fallen 1% point, small businesses went down a whopping 18%. today'sen an effort to see that trend is reversed. joining me is lisa with the adams main street morgan group. >> it's very important. and we want to encourage people to come out because small businesses really create employment and you don't have to

derek ward is live outside the apartment complex with more on what happened. good morning, derek. see crews are still on the scene here. now they're mopping up and the investigation is beginning. this fire started before dawn. they believe that the fire