By Rex Hall Jr.
The Kalamazoo Gazette
TEXAS TOWNSHIP, Mich. — For firefighters and paramedics, the call Saturday to a house where four children died in an early morning blaze was one for which they never could have prepared mentally.
And, said Texas Township Fire Chief Mike Corfman, it’s one they’ll never be able to forget.
“You’re never, ever really ready for it,” Corfman said Monday as he sat in his office at the Texas Township Fire Department on West Q Avenue. “And you never really recover from it.”
Corfman said firefighters and paramedics from the agencies who responded to the 7:43 a.m. fire at 6835 West N Ave. have attended at least two debriefings since the incident, and officials had planned one for Monday night for first responders and their spouses. He said the sessions focus on “critical incident stress management.”
“There was a lot of sharing,” Corfman said of the two sessions held Saturday and Sunday. “It’s really a support network.”
The names of the deceased children were released Monday by Whitley Memorial Funeral Home. They are Daniel Adams, 6; Zion Bryant, 4; Deontae Vaughn, 4; and Kianna Bracken, 3.
Police have reported that one of the boys was 5 years old, but a funeral home official said the ages come from information supplied by the Kalamazoo County medical examiner’s office.
Autopsies conducted Sunday at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing showed the four all died of smoke inhalation, police said. Funeral arrangements are pending through Whitley.
A 22-year-old woman who is the mother of three of the deceased children remained hospitalized Monday, as did a 5-year-old boy. No new information was available Monday on their conditions.
Detective Sgt. Jim VanDyken of the Kalamazoo County Sheriff’s Office said detectives are continuing to probe whether the house had working smoke detectors at the time of the fire. He confirmed that a 16th person, who escaped unharmed, was in the house.
VanDyken said investigators are still attempting to learn the cause of the fire, which they have determined started in the living room of the ranch-style house. VanDyken said detectives had found nothing suspicious about the fire.
Also Monday, VanDyken said Texas Township firefighters mistakenly responded to the 5800 block of West N Avenue after they were given incorrect information that had been relayed to a Kalamazoo County dispatcher from a caller. Corfman also confirmed the mishap, saying that three trucks from his agency and one from the Portage Fire Department responded to that area.
Despite the misinformation, Corfman said a lieutenant from the Oshtemo Township Fire Department arrived on the scene in his personal vehicle at 7:45 a.m., followed by an Oshtemo rig two minutes later.
Several Texas Township firefighters also responded to the scene in personal vehicles and were able to assist Oshtemo personnel, Corfman said. However, he said a Texas Township truck didn’t arrive on scene until 7:56 a.m.
Corfman said some of the children in the house were removed by family members and bystanders before firefighters arrived, and authorities believe the 22-year-old and three children were sleeping in a back bedroom when the fire started.
Corfman said it was the first fatal fire in Texas Township since 1954. Another longtime fire official, former Kalamazoo Fire Marshal Marty Myers, said the number of deaths in the blaze was the largest tally in a fire in Kalamazoo County that he can remember in his 33-year career.
“It’s one of the most tragic situations we’ve had since I’ve been around,” said Myers, who retired from the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety last year.
On Monday, the house was boarded up and surrounded by yellow police tape. A makeshift memorial has taken shape near the home’s mailbox, a mix of flowers, a stuffed animal and a wreath decorated with a ribbon that read, “In Loving Memory.”
Also Monday, Texas Township Supervisor Dave Healy wrote in a memo to the township board that there were no known ordinance violations at the house.
Healy also wrote that “we are always looking at ordinances as a way to ensure the health, safety and welfare of our citizens.
“In light of this unfortunate event we will certainly be taking another look at possible changes, but we would not simply have a knee-jerk reaction. A Rental Ordinance is something we may want to consider.”
Gazette freelance writer Fran Wilcox contributed to this report.
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