James and Bill Stone watched, horrified and helpless.

They could hear their sister Pauline and the 6-year-old child she was babysitting, Leilani Roman, screaming for help inside their burning house on East Madison Street just after 4:30 Monday morning.

City firefighters had arrived but the two brothers saw no water being aimed at the fire. A truck hooked up to a hydrant at one end of the block.

But still no water was being sprayed on the fire. The seconds ticked past.

Firefighters knew there were people trapped inside the house at 225 E. Madison. Still, no water arrived, the two brothers said, as they listened to firefighters assessing the scene.

"They said, 'You can't go in, we have no water,' " James Stone said. "They said, 'We have to,' and they went in."

Pauline Stone, 38, and Leilani, the daughter of Stone's best friend and a little girl her family loved and cared for, died as firefighters tried to rescue them from the raging fire.

One of the rescuers, Lt. Andre Kelley, got trapped in the fire and had to be rescued himself. He was in critical but stable condition at Crozer-Chester Medical Center Monday after suffering second- and third-degree burns to 20-25 percent of his body.

The son of a retired city firefighter, Kelley has been with the city fire bureau for more than 10 years and was honored in 2004 for helping with a rescue in the city.

Firefighter Tom Bender jumped from a second-story window and suffered first- and second-degree burns on his hands, but was treated and released at Lancaster General Hospital. A third firefighter, Craig Robertson, broke a vertebra in his back after jumping from a door. He also was treated and released, the city fire union said on its Facebook page.

Grieving, stunned, homeless and shaking with shock and sadness, the Stone brothers were grateful for the heroic firefighters who charged into their burning house.

But they had one question Monday afternoon, hours after other firefighters found the bodies of their sister and the little girl.

Where was the water?

"Ask any neighbors — the whole block — they will tell you," James Stone said.

"There was no water."

The brothers said there appeared to be a problem with a hydrant at Madison and Lemon streets at one end of their block, and that firefighters had to connect a hose to a second hydrant at the other end of the block at Madison and Lime streets.

Lancaster City Fire Capt. Tim Gregg initially said at a press conference Monday that firefighters had some problems with water pressure and had to go to a secondary hydrant.

But city officials checked and said there were no reported problems with the hydrants on the block.

In a later interview, Gregg said firefighters have not had a chance to sit down and formally talk about what happened at the fire.

But he said firefighters arriving at a rescue scene like the one Monday morning generally carry inside a hose that is pre-connected to a tank that carries about 500 gallons of water.

That hose can get kinked as it's dragged around furniture and banisters, he said.

"I don't think that's unusual, to be honest with you," he said.

Gregg also said it's not unusual to use two different hydrants to supply water for fighting a fire.

To bystanders, he said, minutes seem like hours, and it's hard for them to judge what firefighters are doing.

"The bottom line for today was it was a serious fire," he said. "It was well-involved when we arrived. Our firefighters did what firefighters do. They immediately entered and conducted a difficult search."

The cause of the fire has not been determined and it is under investigation.

The Stone family struggled Monday to grasp that their sister was gone. Family members gathered at St. James Episcopal Church in Lancaster to talk and cry and remember.

Pauline Stone was the youngest of four siblings and lived with her two brothers, James and Bill. She had worked at the Walmart in East Lampeter Township for about 10 years and lately had worked as a bus aide for Intermediate Unit 13, her family members said.

Known as "Sissy" or "Aunt Sissy" to her family, Stone never had children of her own but she loved kids.

While working at Walmart, she met Jessi Roman Walton.

Walton, 33, of Columbia, said Stone was her best friend. After Walton got pregnant and had a daughter, Leilani, Stone and her late mother, Maggie, offered to watch the little girl while Walton worked.

Leilani grew close with the Stones and often spent weekends at their house. Both families took trips together, to the beach and other sites.

Leilani, a first-grader at Park Elementary School in Columbia, had spent Presidents Day weekend with the Stones because they all planned to go out for Chinese food Monday.

Bill Stone's son, Dakota, 13, also was staying at the house Sunday night, sleeping in the basement along with his dad.

Dakota said he awoke to the sound of a smoke detector and the smell of smoke.

His dad hurried him up the stairs and got him outside, where they saw James Stone, who had spent the night at the house of elderly neighbors he helps to care for. Neighbors had alerted James Stone to the fire.

The brothers watched as the fire raged, and as their sister and Leilani were lost to it.

Pauline Stone's sister, Margaret Geiter of Paradise, said she talked to her sister several times every day about "everything — kids, her job, things we were doing. She was bubbly. She talked a lot."

But when the phone rang early Monday, it was her brother James, with incomprehensible news.

"I jumped out of bed and fell to my knees," she said, her voice breaking, "because it's my sister."

No one could find a photo of Pauline Monday. That was the way she was. She took a lot of pictures of everyone else but never wanted one taken of herself.

Pauline would give you the shirt off her back, Bill Stone said.

"She was a very good-hearted person," James Stone said. "And Leilani was our little heart."

cstauffer@lnpnews.com