Family members killed in house fire
Three people, including two children, died early Tuesday morning when their house in the King Villa neighborhood caught fire.
The fire happened on the 3100 block of Johnson Drive, three miles south of Pollards Corner off of Washington Road, said Assistant Chief Brice Reynolds with the Leah Fire Department.
According to the office of state Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner John Oxendine, officials received the call to the fire shortly before midnight on Monday.
The fire started somewhere in the back of the residence, but Reynolds said that officials were not sure exactly how the fire started.
Two children and one man were killed during the blaze. A fourth woman and a 5-year-old boy were taken to Doctors Hospital's Joseph M. Still Burn Center for treatment of smoke inhalation. The woman was listed in critical condition, and the boy was in serious condition Tuesday morning.
Reynolds said when crews arrived, heavy smoke and fire were present. He said one woman was already outside of the residence when the first crews of the Martinez Fire Department were called to the scene for mutual aid.
Firefighters found two males on the floor of the living room and pulled them out of the residence, Reynolds said, and later found that a female had died in the fire.
He said officials found that there had also been a 5-year-old child in the house, but one of the fire's victims was able to get the child out of the house.
The crews from Leah, Appling and Winfield - soon to be the North Columbia Fire Department - responded to the fire.