By Kathryn Gregory
The Charleston Gazette
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Charleston police have opened an investigation into a fire believed to have been intentionally set on the porch of a three-unit apartment building on Charleston’s East End Sunday morning.
Four children — ages 3, 2, 1 and 3 months — and a man were hurt and taken to the hospital.
An “aggressive fire attack was initiated” on the porch of the 1527 Jackson St. apartment building, said Lt. Ken Tyree, with the Charleston Fire Department.
The three girls rescued from the fire are all doing well, Charleston Fire Chief Randy Stanley told Charleston City Council members Monday evening, but the 2-year-old boy was struggling for survival.
“He’s the one who went to Saint Francis [Hospital], the hyperbaric chamber,” Stanley said. “He’s minute to minute.”
While undergoing treatment in the hyperbaric chamber Sunday, the boy went into cardiac arrest several times, he said.
All four children were at CAMC Women and Children’s Hospital on Monday, Stanley said.
Police have joined Tyree to investigate the fire, which might have been set with the intention of hurting or killing some occupants of the apartment building.
“We’re trying to figure out what happened definitely, but we’ve got officers working with arson investigators,” said Sgt. Eric Hodges with the Criminal Investigation Division of the Charleston Police Department.
Tyree said crews arrived about 3:20 a.m. to find the fire engulfing the front porch and in the front room of the apartment building, with only light smoke on the upper floors of the building.
As of Monday, nothing new had been discovered about the fire, but Tyree was encouraging people who live in the immediate area to contact police or the Fire Department if they have any information.
“A lot of the times with suspicious fires, the public plays a big part,” he said. “We never know who may have seen something.”
Tyree said Sunday morning’s blaze is the first suspicious fire in a while.
“We have fires that are ruled arson and investigated on a regular basis,” Tyree said. “But it’s not prevalent ... in Charleston.”
That could be because of a targeted enforcement campaign by the department.
“We’ve had some success in mitigating those problems — the persons or families that have caused the fire problems in the past,” he said.
Tyree said people who intentionally set a fire for insurance or monetary purposes realize that at some point they are going to get caught. If they aren’t, “it’s going to be hard to get insurance and coverage if there are fires around you, whether it’s mysterious or not.”
Tyree said it was troubling that children were involved in this instance, “but the potential was high for all 11 people in that structure to have the worst problems of their life with this.”
Tyree said, as far as he knows, none of the victims suffered burns, but “smoke inhalation is just as bad.”
“That and carbon monoxide poisoning, the toxic smoke, that is what kills people,” he said. “Most of the time when people are burned, it’s from explosions or flash fires. But with the carbon monoxide poisoning, most people are dead before they even have a chance to get burned.”
There were no smoke alarms present on the first floor of the apartment building, but there was an operating carbon monoxide alarm in the home, Tyree said.
Tyree said it’s imperative for people to have operating smoke alarms in their home.
“Most of the time when there is an operating smoke alarm, it provides you with an early warning,” he said, “but it doesn’t always guarantee a safe evacuation.”
Tyree said the only thing that guarantees a safe evacuation from a home engulfed in flames is to have smoke alarms and residential sprinklers.
Smoke alarms should be outside of every bedroom and throughout the home.
“They play a big part in early warning,” he said.
Anyone with information about the fire should call the Charleston Fire Department shift commander at 304-348-8133, the Fire Prevention Bureau at 304-348-8058, or the Charleston Police Department Criminal Investigation Division at 304-348-6480.
Copyright 2010 Charleston Newspapers