By Suzanne Hoholik
The Columbus Dispatch
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Treasure Mi Windom-Harris was silly and adventurous.
Her sister, Tomarra Renee Hackett, was more of a homebody who liked to stick close to her mom.
“All the kids would be playing and she’d say, ‘I’m going home,’ ” said Rickeya Shirley, the girls’ aunt.
Treasure, 7, and Tomarra, 5, spent Saturday night watching Christmas movies. They died in a fire that engulfed their two-story town house early yesterday.
Flames shot as high as 40 feet in the air, and a tree in front of the unit caught fire.
By the time Columbus firefighters arrived at 2794 Grosse Point Drive, the fire was too intense for them to get inside. The complex is on the southeastern edge of the city, south of Refugee Road, east of Winchester Pike and west of I-270.
Their mother, Valerie Windom, 34, was home with the girls when the fire started about 5 a.m.
“The children woke up and told her they were hungry about 4:30 or 5,” fire investigator Mike DeFrancisco said. “She started something on the stove and dozed off.”
Windom awoke to find her apartment ablaze. She was downstairs, and her daughters were upstairs in a bedroom.
“She stated that she tried to rescue the children and was unable to,” DeFrancisco said. “She went outside to get help.”
Several neighbors woke up to what they described as a loud pop.
“I woke up and I thought, ‘No way,’ ” said Precious Smith, a neighbor. The fire “was like something on TV. The flames were as high as the tree.”
Kendell Actkins, who was staying next door, told The Dispatch that he tried to save the girls.
“I tried to make it to the door, but flames bust out, so I had to bag,” he said. “I couldn’t make it.”
Through the doorway, he could see the kitchen and stairway were consumed by fire.
“I wish there was something we could have done to get them out of there,” Actkins said. “We were five minutes too late.”
The second floor eventually fell through to the first floor, DeFrancisco said.
Extra crews were called to contain the fire. The two adjoining town houses, which had been evacuated, were burned and uninhabitable.
Firefighters think the fire was unintentional. Property damage was estimated at $175,000.
Windom was treated for smoke inhalation at Grant Medical Center. She has a third daughter, Trinity Brown, 12, who lives with her father.
Smith said she didn’t know the girls or their mom, but she had seen them around the complex and often walked with them and other children to the school-bus stop.
“We’re all neighbors, we watch out for each other,” she said. “They (were) always outside playing and laughing. They were always so happy, never complaining.”
Both girls were students at Sedalia Elementary in the Groveport Madison district, according to their aunt.
Their deaths are even more tragic coming so close to Christmas, Shirley said.
“We were planning to have Christmas dinner” at the town house, Shirley said. “Christmas is not going to be the same this year.”
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