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WEST VALLEY CITY -- A 4-year-old girl is dead following a house fire in West Valley City. Though the cause is still under investigation, relatives say the girl may have been the one to accidentally start the fire.
Crews responded to a home near 4500 South and 5000 West around 4:20 Wednesday afternoon. When they arrived, flames were shooting out of the front part of the home.
Firefighters say seven people were in the home when the fire started. Six made it out safely, but firefighters found the body of a 4-year-old girl in a bedroom.
"This is a true tragedy. It's a tragedy for everybody, especially when a young person like that perishes in a fire," said West Valley Fire Chief John Evans.
Firefighters are still looking into the cause of the fire, but relatives say the girl may have been playing with a lighter and accidentally started the fire that took her life.
4-year-old Tangi Togiai was in the home -- along with her siblings, cousins and great-grandmother -- when the fire started.
When Kauata Bloomfield, an aunt of Tangi's, went to the home to pick up her daughter, she found the kids sitting outside crying. Bloomfield ran inside and saw smoke coming out the great-grandmother's room.
"I came back outside and asked the kids what was going on, and they were just yelling and saying that Tangi was in the room and they needed to get her out," Bloomfield said. "So I just called 911 from there ‘cause I knew I couldn't get to the door."
The kids told her Tangi may have started the fire. They say the girl used clothes to try and put it out.
"They just said that she was playing with a lighter and she shut the door because she didn't want to get in trouble," Bloomfield said.
Firefighters put the fire out quickly, and neighbors say it was quite the sight.
"The second window on the left side of the house over here where it's stucco, it was flying. Flames were just shooting out of it, then the window blew out," said Mike Rogers.
The children's great-grandmother and five other kids -- between 3 months and 6 years old -- made it out safely.
Relatives are grateful for that, but they're now left to mourn the loss of a little girl who they say had a big sense of humor.
"She was the best," said Lata Tahi, another aunt of Tangi's. "She was loud, nobody could ever bring her spirit down."
Wrapped in a blanket, the girl's mother was overcome with grief over the loss of her daughter.
"She's feeling lost right now. She really has nothing to say," said Tahi.
Tangi's mother was not at home at the time and her father was in Idaho, working. A fund has been set up to help the family under the name of Elesi Togiai, the victim's mother, at Wells Fargo.
In what seems to be a sad coincidence, a neighbor tells KSL that the same house caught on fire about seven years ago. That neighbor also says the family was in the middle of adding on to the home and doing some construction on the outside.
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Story compiled with contributions from Sandra Yi and Cleon Wall.
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