Five people, including three children, are dead after an early morning fire destroyed a home in Boone County.
A total of five people, including three children, were killed when a fire erupted at a home early Monday in rural Boone County. While six residents plus Boone County sheriff’s deputy were taken to hospital.
The fire official said it all happened around 2:30 in the morning in the 11000 block of Fleming Street in Garden Prairie, Illinois, which is approximately 7 miles east of Belvidere. Six others were injured, at least two of them critically, in the fire just outside the small Boone County town of Garden Prairie.
Chief Kunce said that winter weather conditions caused the response time to be twice as long as it normally would have been. The first crews arrived 16 to 17 minutes after the call of a fire inside the home with four children trapped upstairs came in.
Chief Brian Kunce, Boone County Fire Protection District 2, said: “A sheriff’s deputy suffered a minor hand injury. It took the first firefighters 16 minutes to arrive because of the foul weather and the nearest fire station was unmanned.”
Additional fire departments from Boone, Winnebago, Ogle, DeKalb, and McHenry counties helped fight the fire for several hours. He said it took dozens of firefighters from several fire departments in Boone County and surrounding counties to extinguish the blaze and remove the bodies from the remains of the house.
Chief Kunce explained: “That’s about twice as long as it would take under normal conditions. Fire was blowing out of every window and three vehicles were on fire. We were not able to enter the house. There was too much fire. We just tried to keep the fire contained.”
He said a 20-year-old woman and a 24-year-old man were among the people who died and it also includes three girls, ages 9, 13, and 14. The people killed and those rushed to the hospital appeared to be members of the same family but officials haven’t determined their exact relationships.
According to the Belvidere School District, three of those who died in the fire were students in the district. The children were identified as Aniela Tatman, Zofia Tatman, and Danika Tatman.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation and Chief Kunce said it could be weeks before that is determined. Two people suffered from smoke inhalation.
Chief Kunce said: “The fact that there are no fire hydrants on the rural property didn’t help matters as water had to be trucked to the scene. I believe they had to go at least seven miles to get water, Illinois State Fire Marshall, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Illinois State Police and the Boone County Coroner.”
He also said that the house was “fully engulfed” and firefighters had to deal with “minor explosions” while also putting out a small shed and three cars that were on fire, attending to six patients, and protecting other structures on the property.
Boone County Sheriff David Ernest said an agent for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Alcohol in the area responded but that there was no indication that explosives or firearms were involved in the fire.
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