6 kids, 2 adults die in W.Va. house fire

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A fire tore through a two-story home that had no functioning smoke detectors Saturday in West Virginia's capital city, killing eight family members, including six children.

Charleston Mayor Danny Jones said he believed it was the city's deadliest fire in at least six decades. Jones said only one smoke detector was found in a cabinet, and it was not working.

Another child from the home was on life support at a hospital and not expected to survive, the mayor said.

In the yard of the home that sits on a corner in a neighborhood packed with small houses, a children's picnic table, chairs and umbrella were overturned. The outside of the front of the home was blackened by the flames and smoke.

Jones said he was devastated by the news when he got the call sometime after the fire was reported around 3:30 a.m.

"I was with my children and I just grabbed them and hugged them, because I have a 5-year-old and a 4-year-old," he said. "I walked up there and caught a glimpse of some fatalities and it's something that's hard to grasp. The fact that there are dead children, it's unimaginable."

Assistant Fire Chief Bob Sharp said two of those killed were adults, and all of the children who died were younger than 8. Ten people were at home when it caught fire and all were related, but Sharp wasn't sure how.

Neighbors indicated there had been a birthday party at the home Friday for one of the adults. Sharp said a couple of families may have been living in the home.

Sharp said it was the deadliest fire in the city since 1949, when seven firefighters perished while battling a fire at a Woolworth department store.