A child's emergency 911 call from inside her home engulfed in flames was the sole call for help. ''We're dying, we're dying!'' she pleaded with a dispatcher at 3:21 a.m. Saturday.
Firefighters arrived less than two minutes later, dispatch call logs show, but it was too late.
Two adults and two children perished in the fire at 160 Austin Ave. N.W. It was the city's second most deadly fire ever.
Neighbor Sonja Spencer-Jackson was hoping everyone had gotten out of the house, but when she saw a line of ambulances on the street, her worst fears were realized.
''You still want to hope,'' she said as investigators hours later pored over the home. ''But once we saw the ambulances lined up, we knew.''
Killed were Edtawn Kimble, 32, his girlfriend, Yolanda Holmes, and her two children, Mari'Auna Holmes, 13, and Marniece, 9.
The children are students at Warren's Willard Elementary School.
Fire Chief Ken Nussle said the fire was a fast one.
''It really accelerated,'' Nussle said. ''It burned very quickly and it was very hot.''
One firefighter suffered a burn to his leg, reports show.
High winds early Saturday morning may have been a factor in how quickly the flames spread, Nussle said. He said firefighters had a clear shot up West Market Street and were there in just minutes of receiving the call.
The victims were found in two upstairs bedrooms, two to a bedroom, Nussle said. From the time the call came in until the flames were out was about 24 minutes, according to the fire report.
There were no working smoke detectors inside the home, according to the state Fire Marshal's office.
The Trumbull County Auditor's website said the home was owned by victim Yolanda Holmes.
Saturday morning, neighbors described being awakened by their dogs, and when they looked outside saw flames shooting from the home.
''It was all engulfed in flames,'' said neighbor Anthony Krekci. ''My dogs woke me up. When I saw it, it was a full inferno.''
''It was bad. The entire house was on fire,'' Spencer-Jackson said. ''You could see flames coming out of the basement window.''
Heidi Iler was already up but her dogs were making noise also, she said.
''Flames were shooting out of the sides,'' Iler said. ''It was blowing out the upstairs and the downstairs.''
Iler said she did not know the family well.
''They seemed like nice people,'' Iler said. ''They never caused any trouble.''
Nussle said the crew that worked Saturday's fire was the same crew that worked a fire on Landsdowne Boulevard N.W. in June where six people - four children and two adults - were killed.
Investigators from the fire department as well as the state Fire Marshals office were on hand sifting through the debris and a specially trained dog was also used to sniff through the rubble for any evidence.
Nussle said the fire was concentrated in the kitchen area and the two upstairs bedrooms in the northeast corner of the home.
Yolanda Holmes' brother, Stanley Thomas, 37, had been shot to death in October. Thomas, co-manager of the bar Clancy's along with his sister, was gunned down in the Youngstown-Warren Road bar's parking lot. No arrests have been made in that case.
Source: http://www.tribtoday.com/page/content.detail/id/568817.html
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