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CHADBOURN, N.C. (WNCN) — Crews were still at the scene Saturday afternoon after a house fire left four children dead in Columbus County overnight, officials said.
The fire was reported just after 2:30 a.m. Saturday at a home along North Colony Road, about a mile northeast of Chadbourn, Columbus County Fire Marshal Shannon Blackman told CBS 17.
The first emergency workers to respond were a deputy with the Columbus County Sheriff’s Office and a Chadbourn Rescue team that was returning from Columbus Regional Hospital in Whiteville, Blackman said.
The group arrived about seven minutes after the initial report and saw that the home was engulfed in flames, Blackman said.
The children who died are between the ages of 2 and 7, Blackman said. Two 11-year-old girls managed to escape the blaze, but four sisters died in the fire, according to Blackman.
Blackman told CBS 17 that no adults were at home when the initial fire call was made by the two children who escaped.
The first group at the scene was unable to enter the burning home at 259 N. Colony Road.
“There was no way they could enter the structure at that point,” Blackman told the Columbus County News.
Columbus County officials told CBS 17 that as of noon, emergency crews were still at the scene of the fire, about five miles west-northwest of Whiteville and a mile east of the U.S. 74 and N.C. 410 interchange.
Columbus County Sheriff Bill Rogers told the Columbus County News that the SBI and Fire Marshal were investigating the debris of the home on Saturday.