By Kim Bell
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch
OSAGE BEACH, Mo. — Four young children died in a raging condominium fire late Tuesday in Osage Beach, Fire Chief Jeff Dorhauer said.
The children -- two 2-year-olds, a 4-year-old and a 5-year-old -- were all believed to be related, possibly cousins, Dorhauer said in an interview Wednesday morning.
An adult male who was staying in the same fourth-floor condo with the children got out on his own. He tried to go back inside to rescue the children but the heat and flames forced him out, Dorhauer added.
Firefighters rescued two adults from a third-floor condo. They found the four children, unconscious in bedrooms in the fourth-floor condo, and carried them out through a window and down a rescue ladder. The children were rushed by ambulance to a hospital, where they were pronounced dead.
The names and genders of the children were not immediately available. A news conference is scheduled for 9 a.m. Wednesday at Osage Beach City Hall. Autopsies are planned for Wednesday in Springfield, Mo.
Investigators haven’t determined the cause or origin of the four-alarm fire. Investigators from the city and the state fire marshal’s office have been on the scene for hours. For now, the fire is being considered suspicious.
“It is listed as suspicious only because of the deaths,” Dorhauer said. “There is nothing to lead us to believe it is a crime and nothing to lead to believe it was not a crime.”
The fire was at a four-story unit at the the Compass Pointe Condominiums on Red Bud Road. The complex is off of Highway 54. Calls reporting the fire started coming it at 11:21 p.m. In all, about a dozen 911 calls came in from residents and passersby who spotted the flames. Crews were there by 11:30 p.m., the chief said.
Once firefighters arrived, they saw heavy flames on the fourth floor and shooting through the roof. They were told four children were on the fourth floor. They sprayed the flames with water to try to get inside. The inside stairwell had already collapsed from fire damage. Rescuers hoisted ladders outside the condo and went through a window to get to the children.
Sixty firefighters helped fight the fire. They came from eight departments, as far away as Lebanon, Mo.
One firefighter was injured when he fell off a ladder. He suffered bruising but is expected to be okay, the chief said.
It was an emotional scene, particularly because of the age of the victims, Dorhauer said.
“When it is children, and when it’s more than one, it becomes personal,” the chief said. “The guys tend to see their family as they’re doing this. And sometimes it’s very hard to get over.
“As hard as this is, we were able to bring two people out safely. It’s not very comforting for the guys at this point. They did the best they could.”
The building had working smoke detectors, but the chief said it’s not immediately clear if they were working on the fourth-floor where the children were found.
The fire apparently started somewhere on the fourth floor, maybe in an attic space where it had time to grow, perhaps inside a wall, he said. Investigators will be looking at all those possibilities and haven’t pinned down details yet, he said. “Obviously it was a very fast-moving fire,” he said.
Compass Pointe has 96 condos, all privately owned, on six acres of land in Camden County.
Dr. Keith Norton, forensic pathologist for Southwest Missouri Forensics, is the medical examiner for Camden County. He will be conducting the autopsies.
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