A FIRE IN A WARWICK, RHODE ISLAND, SUBURBAN HOME on Saturday left five people dead including a 7-month-old infant.
WLNE-TV
The people who were not all residents of the house, had held a party the night before that lasted until about 3 am. One of the visitors was asleep on the first floor and woke up around 7 am. At the time he did not notice anything amiss and went back to sleep. Shortly before noon the ceiling over the first floor fell on him re-awaking the man. Seeing smoke, he tried to run upstairs to warn the others, but it was charged with smoke and fire preventing him from getting upstairs.
The five people upstairs were the daughter of the homeowner, her infant daughter, and three other friends who were sleeping over. All of them perished without ever waking up. Firefighters were unaware of the unusually-high number of occupants when they arrived and were stunned with what they found after they made their way to the 2nd-floor.
WPRI-TV Ch. 12 has the video report:
Initial investigation indicated that the fire started on the floor of the upper level, or somehow spread between the floor and ceiling, smouldering for several hours before it broke out. The house had no smoke detectors.
Update, Tuesday Feb. 9: See the updated report on the investigation HERE.
WJAR-TV has additional details HERE.
WLNE-TV also has this video report:
