A father and his two children died early this morning when fire swept through their south Kansas City house.
The children's mother escaped and met arriving firefighters outside the house near East 108th Street and Bennington Avenue.
The victims are a 31-year-old man, a 7-year-old girl and a 2-year-old boy. Their identities have not been released.
Firefighters from Station 41, which is less than a minute away, found extremely heavy smoke and fire coming from the front of the house, said Battalion Chief Lew Hendricks, a spokesman for the Kansas City Fire Department.
"They are the ones who reported seeing fire coming out the windows and front door," Hendricks said.
The fire was so intense that it burned through the roof. Based on the condition of the house when they arrived, he said crews knew early on that it was unlikely anyone still inside could survive.
As one group of firefighters attacked the fire, another group searched the house.
"They found the victims within one to two minutes after being on the scene," Hendricks said. "They pulled them out of the house where they pronounced the 31-year-old man and the 7-year-old girl dead."
Emergency crews rushed the boy, who was accompanied by his mother, to a hospital, where he died within 30 minutes.
Kansas City police are trying to determine how the fire started. They were talking with the mother at the hospital about what happened and what she saw, Hendricks said.
"Despite all the advances in technology and all the gear, sometimes it is still not enough," Hendricks said.
Copyright 2012 - The Kansas City Star, Mo.
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
