(Charleston, WV) Alisha Carter-Camp had a new job, a wedding to plan and a 26th birthday to celebrate with a family cookout and toasts to the birthday girl in a yard full of children. By the end of the night, she was among eight dead, including six children, in one of this West Virginia city 's deadliest house fires in decades.
The blaze tore through the two-story home while the family slept early Saturday, hours after the last guest had left Carter-Camp's party, authorities said. The dead children ranged from 18 months to 8. A seventh child, a 7-year-old boy, was hospitalized on life support.
The cause was under investigation, although arson wasn't suspected, Charleston Mayor Danny Jones said. The fire started about 3:30 a.m. on the first floor. Jones said the home had just one working smoke detector; the city requires several. A building inspection that had been scheduled for last month didn't happen because only children were home at the time.
A children's picnic table, chairs and an umbrella were overturned in the yard of the home, roped off by police tape on a corner in a neighborhood tightly packed with small houses in north Charleston
Alisha Carter-Camp, who would have been 26 Saturday, was among those killed, Jones said. She had been working as a hotel clerk for six months and told neighbors she planned to get married in June and move to Pittsburgh
Four of the victims were 3 years old: Jeremiah Camp, Elijah Scott and two children who were only identified by their first names. Also killed were Keahna Camp, 8, Emanuel Jones, 18 months, and an adult, Alex Seal.
Bryan Timothy Camp, 7, was hospitalized in critical condition. One adult survivor, Latasha Jones Isabell, went to the hospital but it wasn't clear if she was treated. Authorities said all the victims were related, but they weren't sure how and didn't know how many lived full-time in the home.
Carter-Camp and her two children were staying with her sister at the home, said Roxie Means, who lives down the street.
The party started Friday afternoon with a cookout and toasts of wine.
"They were nice people drinking a glass of wine," Roxie Means said. "They weren't drunk. They weren't overdoing anything."
Roxie's daughter, 14-year-old Cassie Means, said she noticed lit candles inside the home when she attended the party Friday night.
The home was engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived. When they went inside, they immediately came across five victims and "started realizing there were a lot of people in this house, a lot of children."
Jones said he was devastated by the news of the fire - the deadliest in the state capital since seven firefighters perished while battling a fire at a Woolworth department store in 1949.
