Updated: Monday, December 27, 1999 - 3 PM
Three Firefighters, Three Kids Die in Iowa Apartment House Fire
Firefighters Rescue Twins But Die Trying to Save Last Child
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GREG SMITH
Associated Press Writer
AP World Wide Photos/John Gaps III
State fire investigator Mike Hiles looks for evidence at the scene of Wednesday's fatal blaze that took the lives of three young children and three firefighters, Thursday, Dec. 23, 1999 in Keokuk, Iowa. Investigators are expecting to have any answers to the cause of the blaze until next week
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KEOKUK, Iowa (AP) -- An intense fire that likely followed a flashover at a duplex in this small Mississippi River town, killing three children and three firefighters who braved flames and thick smoke to try to save them.
``From what I recall, and I was on the scene, we had a very large amount of fire that occurred instantaneously. That's what a flashover does,'' Keokuk Fire Chief Mark Wessel said Wednesday. ``That's what caused the firefighters not to be able to escape the building.''
The blaze killed 1-year-old twins and a 7-year-old girl. The children's mother and a young boy were able to escape with the help of neighbors.
The dead children were identified by family members as twins Rebecca and Robert Cooper, and Jessica McFarland, 7, The Hawk Eye of Burlington reported today.
Wessel identified the dead firefighters as assistant fire chief Dave McNally, 48, Jason Bitting, 29, and Nate Tuck, 39.
``They gave their lives to attempt to rescue these people,'' Wessel said. ``In terms of bravery, I think that speaks for itself.''
Wessel said he did not know the cause of the fire inside the duplex, originally built in 1870.
Courtesy Ed Vinson, www.keokuk.com
A firefighter stands in front of the apartment house after the fire
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All the gear, including self-contained breathing equipment, that the firefighters were wearing when they responded to the call has been recovered and will be examined, Wessel said.
Andrea Glasscock, who lives three houses down the street, said her son went outside to shovel show and came racing back to the house shortly after 8 a.m.
``He said, 'Mom there's a lady on her porch on the corner and she's screaming that she can't find her kids and there's a fire,''' Glasscock said.
Glasscock said she found the woman on an overhang, with smoke billowing out from behind her, and ripped off her shirt and soaked it in snow so the mother could cover her face and go inside the duplex after her children.
The mother handed the boy to Glasscock and a neighbor.
Sharon Vice, a spokeswoman for University Hospitals in Iowa City, said the mother, Mellissa Cooper, and her son, Jacob McFarland, were treated and released for smoke inhalation.
Courtesy Ed Vinson, www.keokuk.com
A view of the rear of the apartment house
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The bodies of two of the firefighters were found upstairs, one of them near the 7-year-old. The other fireman was found downstairs. Wessel said other firefighters were able to get the twins out of the building.
McNally, a 25-year department veteran, had a wife and three children. Bitting, with the department six years, had a wife and three children. Tuck, a four-year veteran and high school baseball coach, had a wife and two children.
Neighbor Brenda Wetzel-Sage said she was immediately reminded of a fire in Worcester, Mass., on Dec. 3 in which six firefighters were killed.
``I thought of Massachusetts and thought, `Here it is in our neighborhood,'' she said. ``It says in the Bible, 'In the twinkle of an eye your life is changed forever.'''
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