Sacramento city fire investigators are looking into the cause of a deadly house fire that has claimed the lives of two children and left their grandmother and another grandchild hospitalized with burns.
At 9:28 a.m. Saturday morning, the Sacramento Fire Department responded to 5756 Wallace Ave. and found a 55-year-old female with severe burns desperately trying to get back inside the house to rescue her two grandchildren.
Fire crews quickly knocked down the flames, and found a 9-year-old female dead in a hallway. They rescued her 7-year-old brother, but he died at the UC Davis Medical Center. The Sacramento County coroner has identified the siblings as Kyle and Annie Bienh.
The unidentified 55-year-old woman has major burns to 90 percent of her body. Another 9-year-old girl suffered burns to 30 percent of her body.
Family members tell KCRA that the three grandchildren had been spending the night and were apparently asleep with their grandmother when the fire broke out Saturday morning.
She was immediately able to rescue one grandchild and get her outside, but when she went back inside to try to rescue her other two grandchildren, the flames and smoke were too intense.
At least one bystander reportedly broke windows to try to reach the children.
Some neighbors who awoke to the sound of screams are calling the tragedy devastating.
Meuy Saephan, the children's mother says her kids were inseparable playing together all the time like best friends.
"They are always together everywhere they go they go together. So I think that is why God took them both at the same time from me", says Saephan.
Fire crews say the home had no working smoke detectors.
"I'm pretty confident if they would have had a working smoke detector that we wouldn't have lost two children here today," says Sacramento Fire Captain Jim Doucette.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
