A mother and her five children died yesterday in a raging, early morning fire that destroyed their East Baltimore rowhouse - two weeks after their home was firebombed.

Although fire and police officials have not determined a cause for yesterday's blaze, neighbors firmly believe it was set in retaliation for the family's stand against the drug dealing and loitering that went on in their neighborhood.

Angela Maria Dawson, 36, and her children, Keith and Kevin Dawson, 9; Carnell Dawson Jr., 10; Juan Ortiz, 12; and LaWanda Ortiz, 14, perished in the blaze.

Her husband, Carnell Dawson Sr., 43, leaped from a second-story window. He is in an area hospital in critical condition, suffering from second- and third-degree burns over 50 percent of his body.

The Dawson family's difficulties were well known in the area around East Preston and Eden streets. On Oct. 3, at 3:51 a.m., someone threw two Molotov cocktails through the kitchen window of their house, according to a police report. That fire caused little damage and no injuries.

Though witness protection had been offered, the family declined, law enforcement officials said. Police refused to discuss the firebombing that occurred two weeks ago and referred all questions to fire officials.

When asked about yesterday's blaze, fire officials would say only that they are investigating and did not know whether it was arson.

Neighbors, however, had no problem stating their belief.

"It was a message to them and a message to us in the neighborhood," said Marcus Kelly.

State Sen. Nathaniel J. McFadden joined neighbors on Preston Street and expressed his outrage over the loss of life.

"We've been fighting this thing, it's an ongoing battle," McFadden said, referring to the city's struggle against drugs. "We're talking about terrorism around the world. We've got terrorism right here with some of these drug dealers."

By midmorning yesterday, all that remained of the three-story, four-bedroom house at 1401 E. Preston St. was a blackened shell and piles of debris.

Firefighters and investigators, including members of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, sifted through the ruins. A Labrador retriever trained to sniff out accelerants also was brought to the scene.

Meanwhile, neighbors huddled under umbrellas and spoke of a family they would never see again.

"She was a wonderful mother and she stood for what she believed in, that nobody was going to do drugs in her neighborhood or around her children," said Gary Jenkins, whom the family's sons called "coach." "She said those hoodlums are not going to run me out of my house."

Kate Stansbury, who struck up a friendship with Angela Dawson this summer, said the young mother told her she didn't like living in the corner house.

She felt the home with its large windows facing north and west was too exposed. A stray bullet could come through and hit one of her children. Dawson, whom everyone knew as "Angel," wanted to move out, perhaps by Christmas, said Stansbury.

The Dawsons were known as a decent, friendly family. The father worked in construction. He was up early and home late.

The boys rode their bicycles up and down the 1200 block of Eden St., but always on the sidewalk. Their mother didn't want them riding in the street. On afternoons you could hear the thump-thump-thump of a basketball as they shot hoops in their small, cement-covered back yard. In the summer, there were cookouts and laughter, children splashing in an inflatable pool.

However, the family had problems with some neighbors. Two weeks ago, the Dawsons went to court against a neighbor who was accused of assaulting the mother and spray-painting a curse on the side of the family's home.

That case was placed on the inactive docket, but the state's attorney's office reopened it two days ago because of the Oct. 3 firebombing.

This is a close neighborhood, though the drug dealing and the vacant houses might lead a stranger to think otherwise. Not only do people see each other in passing every day, but they stop and talk, share their hopes and dreams.

The schoolchildren looked out for Keith, whom they had affectionately nicknamed "Crip-walk" because of a disability.

"I loved Keith," said Shanae Barnes, 11. "He was nice. That was my friend."

The children's deaths also hit the neighborhood adults hard.

"When I saw this on the news, the first thing I thought about was the children," said Russell Keene, sheltering himself with his umbrella. "I knew all those little kids in that house. They were nice kids, came out, played on the sidewalk. They were great kids."

Henry Rogers, who did maintenance work on the Dawson home, said he had known Angela Dawson since their days in junior high school.

"She was close to her family. They had a lot of togetherness. Matter of fact, I was in there last night playing Nintendo in the room where the firemen are at right now," he said, nodding toward the soot-blackened house where firefighters picked their way through the ruined first floor.

He said Angela Dawson called him at 6:49 p.m. Tuesday, about a half-hour after he left. The time and number are still on his cell phone. They talked about work that needed to be done on the house. Rogers said he had planned to put a wire mesh screen on the kitchen window.

The building's owner called him at 8:30 a.m. yesterday with the news. Rogers didn't believe it. So he hustled through the rain to see for himself.

"It was deliberate. It was deliberate," he said, expressing what many in the neighborhood believe. "They had an ongoing problem all this year, threats, accusations, police being called. ... They were fearful for their lives. The husband and wife were scared. ... It was heavy on their hearts."

Kelly, who lives around the corner, said he had seen fires before, but nothing like what he saw when he threw open his vestibule door about 2:20 a.m. yesterday.

The smoke was so thick he couldn't see across the street. Fire crews were already on their way, having received the call about the same time Kelly saw the nightmare of smoke and flames at the end of his block.

At one point there was an explosion as the second-story windows shattered. Down the street, Stansbury watched from her vestibule as flames shot through the roof and windows.

Within three minutes, the first pumpers and ladder trucks, sirens wailing, were on the scene. More than an hour passed before rescue crews could enter the home, and by then it was far too late. Firefighters found the bodies on the second and third floors.

Eight hours later, the smell of smoke still hung in the air. By 11 a.m., the last fire equipment had pulled away. The police were gone. All that was left was the accumulated debris of a family's life: Hot Wheels trucks and cars in the gutter, a bicycle, a basketball, a case for Walt Disney's The Spirit of Mickey video that they must have watched a dozen times, furniture, Pokemon cards, a squirt gun, a cast iron skillet, mattresses, a child's chair.

In the fire's aftermath, pain and sorrow rippled through the neighborhood.

"Right now I have to go home and swallow this because I still can't believe it," said Rogers, thinking about the children. "They had no chance. No chance."

Then he walked off, heading east on Preston Street, jacket pulled up over his head against the soaking rain.

Stansbury, who looked as though she had spent the morning crying, spoke of an empty feeling in her gut. "It's really devastating because of the five kids. That's the hardest thing, seeing those faces in my mind," she said.

At Dr. Bernard Harris Sr. Elementary School, a block from the Dawson home, children stared at empty seats where their friends used to sit.

Lucretia Coates, the school's principal, showed visitors one drawing that was filled with hearts and sad faces from which teardrops fell. One girl asked if they could write messages to the Dawson children, put them in helium-filled balloons and send them up to heaven.

Crisis counselors and the school's psychologists will be on duty at the school for as long as they are needed, said Coates.

She knew the family well. Angela Dawson often walked her children to school in the morning and had visited last week to talk about how they were progressing.

After school yesterday, neighbor Danettia Adams' mother persuaded the 12-year-old and a group of her friends to place a favorite memento on an impromptu shrine at the Dawsons' charred house.

So, shivering in the rain, arms pulled into their long sleeves and one umbrella for all of them, four girls placed teddy bears and stuffed dogs on what had been the side steps and shook their heads in disbelief.

Shanae Barnes spoke for all of them when she said: "I never knew somebody in my class would die."

Sun staff writers Liz Bowie, Walter F. Roche Jr. and Tanika White contributed to this article.