Six people were killed in a fire early on Nov. 28 in Indiana.
The Cass County Sheriff’s Department rushed to the two-story building in the 4300 block of Pottawatomie Road around 1:50 a.m. and were able to rescue two adults but six people, including four children, died in the flames.
The children ranged in age from 2 months to 10 years.
Firefighters tried to get inside and rescue the others but were unable to reach them.
“It’s pretty numbing when initial dispatch is telling us people are entrapped in the structure and they’re saying multiple people,” Cass County Fire Lt. Steve Crispen told Fox 59.
Multiple fire departments responded to the blaze pic.twitter.com/ME8OsoZuE3
— Mitchell Kirk (@PharosMAK) November 28, 2018
The house, on the east side of Logansport, is in a rural, non-hydrated area, so crews had to truck in water to battle the flames. They ran out of water within five minutes and had to stop fighting the fire until more water arrived. The freezing temperatures also made fighting the fire difficult.
Video footage from the scene showed intense flames consuming the house as firefighters watched from the driveway and road.
“Sheriff’s deputy first on scene said he and fellow officer climbed onto roof and broke windows in attempt to get inside, but smoke and flames were too intense,” reported Mitchell Kirk of the Logansport Pharos-Tribune, who shared the footage.
The active fire prevented firefighters from retrieving the bodies until it burned out.
“We’re probably going to have to wait until daytime and stuff to get heavy equip [sic] in here and make sure the structure is safe enough for us to go in there and do recovery of the individuals that are in here,” Fire Lt. Crispen said. “It’s very difficult what this community has gone through the last couple of months.”
Recent Fires
Two other fires in recent months have claimed the lives of two young children and an elderly person.
The children, a 5-year-old and a 1-year-old, died in the emergency room at the Logansport Memorial Hospital on Sept. 9 after being rescued from a burning home on Logansport’s south side, reported the Logansport Pharos-Tribune. The children’s mother, 25-year-old Marlem Sosa, survived along with her son Nayvien Whitelow, 4 months old.
That fire was accidental, investigators said, possibly starting from electrical appliances. There were no working smoke detectors in the house.
Two weeks later, an elderly woman died in a fire.
On Nov. 27, firefighters pulled an elderly woman from a house on Miles Street in the early hours of the morning after the house filled with smoke. The woman was rushed to the hospital in critical condition, suffering light burns and likely smoke inhalation, officials told the Pharos-Tribune.
A neighbor said that a couple and three boys had fled the home. One of the boys had rushed to his house and knocked on his front door for help at 2:45 a.m. Firefighters contained the fire, which was mostly in one room, in 10 to 15 minutes.
Officials said the Nov. 28 fire is being investigated as a possible criminal case. Sheriff’s deputies noted they didn’t hear any smoke detectors when they arrived on the scene.
