Wash. Fire Kills Three Children, Mom Driven Back by Flames

The death of three children in a Centralia house fire early Friday morning has affected the whole community as well as many around the Capitol Campus in Olympia, officials say.

"It's highly unusual to have this number of fatalities," Riverside Fire Authority Chief Michael Kytta said.

The children were in second, fourth and sixth grades in Centralia schools, superintendent Mark Davalos said. Davalos said the schools' crisis protocol was initiated and counselors were brought in, including four from the neighboring Chehalis School District.

Davalos said counseling the children was an extra challenge, because each age group has different needs. The children's father, who does not live in the house, is a state lobbyist identified by colleagues as Brad Tower. Both houses of the Legislature held moments of silence for Tower and his family on Friday.

Tower has been a lobbyist in Washington since 2000. He has represented the state's community bankers, its dental association and the Washington Christmas Tree Growers.

The fire was reported at 12:45 a.m. and first responders found the house in the 900 block of Ham Hill Road already engulfed in flames. Police say the mother and children were the only people in the two-story home.

Centralia police spokesman Sgt. Carl Buster said the mother was sleeping downstairs and the children were sleeping upstairs. Riverside Assistant Chief Richard Mack said the mother awoke to a sound and tried to reach the children, but was unable to because of smoke and heat.

The mother managed to get out of the home and was evaluated at the scene. Firefighters and a police officer attempted to gain access to the upstairs bedrooms from outside the house, but were driven off by heat and smoke.

Police officer Phillip Weismiller, a 36-year-old Army veteran has worked for the department for about three years, was injured when he broke a window to gain access.

"When they got here, the garage door was open so they went in and tried to get upstairs and it was just too hot with smoke and fire," Buster said. "So they came out and went up onto a car and got up onto the roof and (the officer) just broke the window out with his hand, that's basically all he had, and all the gas and hot air and everything escaped at once. He got a pretty serious cut on his hand and had to go to the hospital to get some stitches but is going to be OK."

Investigators are working to determine the cause of the fire, which appears to have started just to the right of the front door entrance.

Kytta said if the fire started near the front door, the staircase would have served as a chimney to the upstairs bedrooms.

"We took a few items of interest out of the house. We'll have it analyzed in a lab," said Buster, who is part of the investigative team. Buster said investigators do not suspect foul play. A stove and cast iron skillet were removed from the home, because they were observed to be glowing, Mack said. But fire patterns indicate the fire did not start in the kitchen, he said. Kytta said it's not known if there were working smoke detectors in the home.

He said the home was of modern construction, and up to code. Lewis County Coroner Warren McLeod said autopsies will be performed on the children early next week. KIRO-TV and The Centralia Chronicle contributed to this report.

Candlelight vigil When: 8 p.m. on Saturday March 5 Where: Washington Park, downtown Centralia at Main and Pearl ___

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