Mother and seven children killed in house fire in northern France
A mother and her seven children aged two to 14 died after a fire broke out while they slept in their house in northern France on Monday, police and firefighters said.
The blaze, the deadliest such fire in France in a decade, broke out shortly after midnight in the family home in the town of Charly-sur-Marne, some 80 kilometres east of Paris.
The mother and her children suffocated from black smoke that filled their home as they were trapped in the attic, local prosecutor Julien Morino-Ros told AFP. The origin of the fire appeared to have been a malfunctioning clothes dryer on the ground floor, he said.
Neighbours called the fire department to report the blaze just before 1am local time.
The woman's husband, father to three of the children, was taken to hospital with severe burns, they said. His life was saved by a firefighter who lives nearby and who intervened before his colleagues could arrive.
The children included five girls and two boys. Four of them were from the mother's previous relationship.
The father appears to have attempted to put out the fire while the children and their mother sought refuge from the flames on the second floor of the house, the prosecutor said. They were trapped by the smoke and flames.
While smoke filled the house, firefighters had trouble getting ladders to the top windows of the house, nestled in a narrow street in the centre of the village of 2,600 inhabitants.
The house's electric window shutters were blocked because of a power outage triggered by the faulty appliance, further hampering the rescue effort, he said.
A total 80 firefighters were called to the scene, and the fire was extinguished after several hours, local authorities said.
Residents in a neighbouring house were evacuated, and firefighters blocked off the street.
The tragedy was the worst such incident since 2013, when five children between two and nine died asphyxiated in an accidental fire, also in northern France.
In the most recent similar tragedy, 10 people including four children died in the night from December 15 to 16, 2022, in a seven-storey building in a working-class district of Vaulx-en-Velin under renovation near the southeastern French city of Lyon.
Comments
See Also
The blaze, the deadliest such fire in France in a decade, broke out shortly after midnight in the family home in the town of Charly-sur-Marne, some 80 kilometres east of Paris.
The mother and her children suffocated from black smoke that filled their home as they were trapped in the attic, local prosecutor Julien Morino-Ros told AFP. The origin of the fire appeared to have been a malfunctioning clothes dryer on the ground floor, he said.
Neighbours called the fire department to report the blaze just before 1am local time.
The woman's husband, father to three of the children, was taken to hospital with severe burns, they said. His life was saved by a firefighter who lives nearby and who intervened before his colleagues could arrive.
The children included five girls and two boys. Four of them were from the mother's previous relationship.
The father appears to have attempted to put out the fire while the children and their mother sought refuge from the flames on the second floor of the house, the prosecutor said. They were trapped by the smoke and flames.
While smoke filled the house, firefighters had trouble getting ladders to the top windows of the house, nestled in a narrow street in the centre of the village of 2,600 inhabitants.
The house's electric window shutters were blocked because of a power outage triggered by the faulty appliance, further hampering the rescue effort, he said.
A total 80 firefighters were called to the scene, and the fire was extinguished after several hours, local authorities said.
Residents in a neighbouring house were evacuated, and firefighters blocked off the street.
The tragedy was the worst such incident since 2013, when five children between two and nine died asphyxiated in an accidental fire, also in northern France.
In the most recent similar tragedy, 10 people including four children died in the night from December 15 to 16, 2022, in a seven-storey building in a working-class district of Vaulx-en-Velin under renovation near the southeastern French city of Lyon.
Join the conversation in our comments section below. Share your own views and experience and if you have a question or suggestion for our journalists then email us at [email protected].
Please keep comments civil, constructive and on topic – and make sure to read our terms of use before getting involved.
Please log in here to leave a comment.