Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Team coverage An apartment in Holladay caught fire. The families who live there thought everyone made it out. But then, a startling discovery for firefighters.
They were told everyone got out of the basement apartment safely. But when they went inside to attack the fire, they found a 6-year-old girl unconscious in the bedroom where the fire started. Her family didn't know she was still inside.
Unified Fire Authority is done with its part of the investigation, and now the Division of Child and Family Services is continuing with further examination.
Outside the Lemans apartments late last night, firefighters resuscitated the 6-year-old girl as distraught family members fought back emotions. After emergency crews got her breathing again, they took her to Primary Children's Hospital where she's being treated for smoke inhalation.
Inspector Shirle White of the Unified Fire Authority said, "I believe we had personnel who spoke to her father, and he was unaware she was in that room."
"Our understanding is there were eight people in the apartment and maybe because of the sheer numbers the girl got lost in the mix-up," he said.
A neighbor, who is also the father's co-worker, says the man was completely distraught once he discovered his daughter was still inside. "It was probably just a mistake on his part. He has a lot of children he has to take care of, and it was probably just the confusion that happened," Louis Webb said.
Another neighbor, Amanda Bennett, said, "There was a lot of confusion, a lot of mix-up. We all congregated outside. We all congregated out here in front of the building, and I know the guy. It was an honest mistake."
We asked her if the father did a head count with his family. She said, "Yes, he did."
Bennett lives just above the apartment where the fire broke out. Smoke seeped into her bathroom.
"Yeah, it was just filling up. We didn't know if it was coming from our heater or it had started in our bathroom," she said.
Bennett has never been inside her neighbor's apartment. Fire officials tell us a family of 10 lives there, and it's actually two apartments the family converted into one unit without the landlord's permission.
Capt. Jay Torgersen said, "They have cut a hole in the wall between the two apartments so you can go back and forth between the two. It's not an approved connection."
"There were a number of different packs of matches, lighters that were found in the apartment. So that is one of the possibilities that it may have been started by a child in the house who had access to those items," Torgersen said.
The Division of Child and Family Services is now investigating because it has concerns about whether this was a safe place for children to be living. Also DCFS has been helping the family find a place to stay. They can't go back to their apartment. Even though the fire was contained to one room, there was at least $50,000 in damage to the apartment.
Fire officials say some of the family members were not home at the time of the fire, including the mother and a few children. The call came in just before 11 p.m. Murray responded first, with Unified Fire arriving shortly after.
