2 escape house fire in Brockway that kills 10
BROCKWAY, Jefferson County — The lights and sirens awakened Lori Anderson and her husband about 3 a.m. Thursday as smoke and flames poured out of their neighbors' modest house.
The couple ran outside and asked rescue workers if everyone in the big family — three generations under one roof — had gotten out.
"They said no, they're all in there," Anderson said.
Ten people died in the fire, all but one of them teenagers or younger. Two people escaped, including an adult daughter who jumped from the second floor and ran naked and screaming for help, authorities in rural Brockway said.
The family patriarch had been working the overnight shift at a factory in a nearby town.
"They didn't have a whole lot (materially), but they had each other and that's what made them happy," said Amy Glasl, principal of Brockway Elementary School, which two of the victims and one of the survivors attended.
An overturned tricycle sat by the front door after the fire, while two scorched vehicles were in the driveway. Firefighters brought in wood beams to fortify the ravaged house, which burned so intensely the siding on a neighboring house melted.
Fire Chief Kris Benson said the front of the house was ablaze when he arrived at 2:50 a.m. He tried to enter through a side door, but was forced back by smoke and flames.
"This fire had a very, very good jump on us," he said.
Jaime Hynds, a newspaper editor who lives across the street from the home, said she was awakened at about 2:30 a.m. by a naked woman shouting for help. The woman jumped from the second floor and ran to Hynds' home, according to her newspaper, The Courier-Express of DuBois.
All 10 victims were found inside the house. State police identified them as Kimberly Peterson, 40; Rebecca Peterson, 17, and her daughter Cailyn Watson, 4 months; Douglas Peterson III, 13; Isaac Peterson, 8; Grace Peterson, 6; Lillian Peterson, 11 months; Domanic Delullo, 4; Desirre Delullo, 2; and Jason Mowry, 19, a friend.
Elizabeth Peterson, 20, and 11-year-old James Peterson survived. Domanic and Desirre were Elizabeth Peterson's children.
The fire's cause remains under investigation but is not considered suspicious. There were space heaters in the home, state police Lt. Scott Neal said. Authorities did not immediately know if the house had working smoke detectors.
A neighbor called Kimberly Peterson's husband, Douglas Peterson Jr., and police spoke with him. He arrived around 4 a.m. at the house on a side street lined with several other single-family homes, officials said.
"We know everybody, so it's like losing one of your own," said William Hrinya, mayor of the rural town of about 2,000 set among rolling hills and farmland in Jefferson County.
Many residents work at the town's glass manufacturing plants, Owens Brockway Glass Containers, now part of Owens-Illinois. Doug Peterson Jr. worked for the company until a few years ago.
