6 kids dead in slumber party house fire

Last Updated 3:23 p.m. ET

(CBS/AP) CHARLESTON, W.Va. - A fire tore through a two-story home that had no functioning smoke detectors Saturday in West Virginia's capital city, killing eight family members, including six children, the city's mayor said.

Charleston Mayor Danny Jones said he believed it was the city's deadliest fire in at least six decades. Jones said only one smoke detector was found in a cabinet, and it was not working.

Charleston Assistant Fire Chief Bob Sharp said two of those killed were adults, and all of the children who died were younger than 8.

In addition, one child was on life support at a hospital and not expected to survive, the mayor said.

Authorities told CBS Affiliate WOWK that a birthday-turned-slumber party was taking place in the home at the time of the fire.

It was not immediately clear how the blaze started early Saturday morning at the two-story, wood-frame home.

In the yard of the home that sits on a corner in a neighborhood tightly packed with small houses, a children's picnic table, chairs and umbrella were overturned. The outside of the front of the home was blackened by the flames and smoke.

Jones said he was devastated by the news when he got the call sometime after the fire was reported around 3:30 a.m.

"I was with my children and I just grabbed them and hugged them, because I have a 5-year-old and a 4-year-old," he said. "I walked up there and caught a glimpse of some fatalities and it's something that's hard to grasp. The fact that there are (six) dead children, it's unimaginable."

Ten people were inside the home at the time of the fire and all were related, but Sharp wasn't sure how.

An adult female from the home went to a neighbor's house to report the fire. The home was engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived.

Sharp said firefighters reduced the flames quickly. When they went inside, they immediately came across five victims and "started realizing there were a lot of people in this house, a lot of children."

Sharp said the fire seems to have started in the middle of the home's main level. The cause is under investigation.

Sharp said it was the deadliest fire in the city since seven firefighters perished in while battling a fire at a Woolworth department store in 1949.

"You can imagine how traumatizing that is to us and shocking to the community in general," he said.

[jscott418-21618367473133020464]

I'll never understand why people can't go to the Dollar store and by a battery that can save your life?
I even know that many fire departments will send someone out to replace,fix or install a smoke detector.

[Phxfire]

They start beeping and it's annoying so they take out the battery, but the detector aside until they get that 9 volt, only they never do...or the detector is too close to the kitchen...the excuses are just as empty as those used not to wear seatbelts. It all boils down to 'it's not going to happen to me, I've lived this long with a _____________. just fill in the blank. Those innocent children who didn't have a say or a choice.

[dreamymiss100]

So very sorry to the parents of the children.

[random_radar]

I know this sounds dumb, but I would have gotten the kids out of the house before I went next door to call the fire department.

[julianpenrod]

Another demonstration of the suspicious nature of municipal treatment of the Madonna Badger house fire, Christmas Day 2011. THis house is equally as gutted, yet it was not bulldozed to the ground. The authorities ordered the evidence of the Stamford, Connecticut fire destroyed the day after it occurred! People can be seen in the photo going into the house, but the claim by the criminals in Stamford's municipal government insisted that the house was too unstable to allow anyone in. The evidence is significant, if not overwhleming, that Madonna Badger is inv0olved in something criminal, and the Stamford local government are craven conspirators.

[FlourK]

What planet are from?

[SUZAMBA]

For real.............are you crazy!