@Aussie: the description explicitly refers to children and this issue would read exceptionally poorly if it couldn't distinguish between vat-grown newborn adults and vat-grown veteran adults. I think the no-vat policy is the best way to make the issue work.
@OP: good change to explain that the hiding behaviour is common for kids. However, I think a little more explication might be useful given that it's such a weird fact to take for granted. In the hindsight of having read your explanation, the description as it stands now makes sense, but I still feel like someone coming across the issue for the first time might not immediately accept the fact.
This could be made slightly easier a pill to swallow by demonstrating to the reader the justification you showed in your post - that kids think of the flames as a 'monster' which wants to find them and hurt them, rather than a natural phenomenon. This way, the reader wouldn't have to try and justify it in their own head that children often hide from flames in closets.
I also merged in the rescue to make space for the explanation, which I include for demonstrative purposes here.
i.e. "Yesterday, a house in @@CAPITAL@@ caught fire while two children were home alone. A neighbor spotted the blaze and alerted firefighters, who rescued the children from a closet in which they were trying to hide from the flames. [explanation that hiding is common behaviour]." The explanation could go something like "In the following press conference, Fire Chief @@@@ explained that many children unfamiliar with fire view it as a predator to hide from, rather than something that can be escaped."
