It's early Tuesday morning at the Centerville Gazette. Making your usual phone checks, you get word from the fire department about a house fire early this morning. Deputy Fire Marshal Larry Johnson tells you the following:
The blaze was in a row house in the Cedar Glen section of the city. Address is 245 Elm St. A family with two kids was asleep on the second floor. Apparently someone in one of the bedrooms fell asleep smoking a cigarette and that ignited the bedsheets. A neighbor who was up late watching TV smelled the smoke and dialed 911 after looking out his window and seeing flames. The 911 call was received at 2:45 a.m. and firefighters were on the scene by 2:50.
It took firefighters about 30 minutes to extinguish the flames. The fire was centered in the second floor. Johnson tells you firefighters using a long ladder managed to pull the two kids out of their upstairs bedroom, which had a window facing the street. But the two adults were in a rear bedroom and took much longer to find. Johnson says all four family members were rushed to St. Mary's Hospital. He adds that there was minor damage to the adjoining houses but that no one else was injured. The house where the fire started had extensive damage, he says.
You call St. Mary's. Janice Robinson, the spokeswoman there, says the two children are being treated for smoke inhalation but are expected to survive. She says the two are both girls, ages 6 and 8. She says the mother, age 36, is in critical condition with first-degree burns over 70 percent of her body. The father, who also suffered severe burns, was pronounced DOA. She says she can't give you any names until next of kin have been notified.
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