Pioneer Press
(TNS)
Firefighters pulled six children and a woman from a St. Paul home Wednesday morning and they were taken to the hospital in critical condition.
The fire department was called at 1:30 a.m. about a residential house fire in the Payne-Phalen neighborhood and found a single-family home with smoky conditions, said Deputy Fire Chief Roy Mokosso.
The first crew arrived three minutes and 17 seconds after being dispatched, and more crews were there within five minutes of the dispatch, the fire department said.
Firefighters quickly extinguished the fire and began searching the main floor of the house on Arkwright Street near Maryland Avenue. They found seven people and took them outside, where they immediately started CPR.
The people were all unconscious at the time, and preliminary reports are the injuries were predominately from smoke inhalation, Mokosso said.
The fire is not suspicious — it appears to be an accidental fire and is under investigation, according to Mokosso.
One adult was home with the children, while another adult was at work.
“In my almost 30-year career, I can count on one hand” how many times there’s been a fire with this many injured in St. Paul, said Fire Chief Butch Inks. “The response times under four minutes and having … five (fire rigs) there in under five minutes is incredible response time and the reason that these seven individuals still have a chance right now.”
One firefighter rescued three of the children.
“We show up on scene and … visibility is is nil, you can’t see anything,” Inks said. “And this individual went in, quickly found one child, pulled the child out. Went back in, found another child, pulled that child out, and they went back in for a third time, and found another child and pulled that child out” and begin doing CPR on the third child while exiting the home.
A 911 call was believed to have come from inside the residence. A female reported the house was on fire, and then there was an open phone line and a dispatcher could only hear an alarm, according to an emergency radio dispatch.
Indications are there were working smoke detectors in the home, which is owner-occupied, Mokosso said.
A total of 63 firefighters responded, including eight ambulances. Inks said he’d talked to some of the first responders Wednesday morning. There is a peer-support program in the department available to them, there will be a critical incident debriefing and an after-action review.
“It’s a very traumatic event for our folks,” Inks said. “… We do this for a living, … it’s our job, but … we’re human beings and it’s very difficult to do a lot of times and to maintain composure. … These individuals that responded today really performed heroic things.”
The home’s occupants were taken by ambulances to a hospital, and two were transferred to another hospital.
“Some of the things that probably impeded the occupants being able to get out” were likely the locations of the bedrooms on the first floor and the location of the fire on the first floor, which they would have had to go through to exit the home, Mokosso said. “The additional fact is that they’re six children, one adult. … We’ll continue through the investigation process to try to determine how we can turn around and use this information for our prevention education.”
The quick response time was important because fires double in size every minute, according to Mokosso. Most fire fatalities are caused by lack of oxygen, and that can happen in a fire in two to three minutes, he said.
Having working smoke detectors in residences and evacuation plans are always important, Mokosso said.
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