Cause of fatal blaze in Steele, Mo., still under investigation

STEELE, Mo. -- A home where a fire killed five children and injured three adults is so severely damaged that investigators may not be able to determine a specific cause for the blaze, a fire official said Friday.

Assistant state fire marshal Greg Carrell said the second floor of the house in Steele, where the occupants slept, collapsed on the main floor early Thursday. The collapse may not have left enough of a scene to adequately determine a cause, he said.

"The fire started on the second floor someplace," Carrell said. "The fire was really well involved when the fire department got to the scene."

He said the house was only 20 feet wide by 30 feet long.

"That's basically two rooms," he said. "It doesn't take a lot of fire to do some damage."

Carrell said the house was old, had old wiring, and that the attic had been converted into a living space. It had no insulation to slow the fire once it got started.

The five siblings, ages 1 through 7, were in an upstairs bedroom when the fire broke out around 4:15 a.m., Steele police chief Michael Tomlinson said.

In all, 18 people were in the house when the children's grandmother awoke and began screaming for everyone to get out, Tomlinson said.

"The upstairs room was full of smoke and flames, and they weren't able, because of the flames, to get to the other children," Tomlinson said.

There were no smoke detectors in the house, Tomlinson said.

Steele fire chief Eddie Gilbert said the victims perished in the smoke. "They died before we got the call," he said.

"Any time you have that much smoke ... it'll kill you in about four to five minutes."

Gilbert and the U.S. Fire Administration on Friday both emphasized the importance of smoke alarms.

"They need to be there functioning," Gilbert said. "People buy 'em and don't put 'em up. They don't check batteries. They've saved many a person and cost many a life when people didn't have them."

The U.S. Fire Administration said having a working smoke alarm reduces the chances of dying in a fire by nearly one-half. It said 82 percent of all fire deaths occur in the home.

The victims in the Steele fire were identified as Antonio Amerson, 7; Jerome Finley Jr., 5; Destiny Kinnon, 3; Malik Marquan Amerson, 2; and Shayla Adrianna Amerson, 21 months. The children had an older sister who was pushed to safety through a window by another person in the house.

Kandince Kinnon, the children's 26-year-old mother, was taken to Pemiscot Memorial Health Systems in Hayti, where she was treated and released, Tomlinson said.

Kinnon told KFVS-TV in Cape Girardeau she had tried to re-enter the house to rescue her children but was stopped by the flames at the front door.

"I tried to get back to them, but I couldn't," she said.

Two other adults were treated and released at Elvis Presley Memorial Trauma Center in Memphis, Tenn. Rufus Amerson Jr., 32, the father of three of the children, injured his neck and back jumping from a second-story window. Another relative, 19-year-old Toni Wynne, had second- and third-degree burns to her upper body.

Steele, a rural community with approximately 2,300 residents, is near the Mississippi River about 190 miles south of St. Louis.

The 18 people in the house were two grandparents, two daughters, 12 grandchildren, the father of three of the children and a family friend, Tomlinson said.

Karen Farley, principal at South Pemiscot Elementary School, said she believed Kinnon had moved in with her parents after the home where she had been living was damaged when violent weather swept the Bootheel in April.

Among the survivors was the oldest sibling of the five children who died. Wynne had thrown the child to safety from an upstairs window.

"That's how Toni was burned, trying to save the children," Tomlinson said. "She wasn't able to save them all, but she was a hero for saving the one."