2024-01-09 20:13:00
Published
Jan. 9, 2024, 3:13 p.m. ET
A West Virginia father and his four children were killed in a devastating house fire over the weekend – leaving the kids’ mother and a surviving daughter “absolutely nothing.”
Hunter Campbell, 28, perished early Saturday in a blaze at his Hardy County home alongside four of his children between the ages of one and five, according to the News & Observer.
First responders were alerted to the fire around 5 a.m. local time, the West Virginia State Fire Marshall said.
“[One] adult female was able to escape the fire and has been transported to a local medical facility,” the statement added.
“The cause of the fire will be ruled undetermined due to the severe amount of damage to the structure. No smoke alarms were found among the debris,” the write-up explained.
Hunter Campbell, 28, and his four children between the ages of one and five perished in the blazer early Saturday. Candi Ann/Facebook
The bodies of the father and the four children were sent to the West Virginia Medical Examiner’s Office for autopsy, officials noted.
Campbell’s fiancée, Candi Strawderman, survived the fire, her friend said in a Facebook post.
In addition to Campbell, Strawderman is also mourning the loss of her two stepchildren and the sons she and Campbell shared, the friend explained.
Candi Strawderman (left) survived the blaze. Hunter Campbell/Facebook
Strawderman and her daughter, who also survived the blaze, now “have absolutely nothing.”
It is unclear if Strawderman’s surviving daughter was in the home at the time of the fire.
As of Tuesday afternoon, a GoFundMe for Strawderman and her daughter had raised over $60,000 of its $65,000 goal.
A second fundraiser for the mother of Strawderman’s stepchildren also raised over $16,000 of its $25,000 goal.
The main damage to the home where Campbell and the children died was in the living room area, where investigators found the remains of a space heater, Deputy State Fire Marshal Jason Baltic told MetroNews Monday.
The family’s home did not have working smoke detectors, officials said. Hunter Campbell/Facebook
But officials cannot determine if the space heater started the fire due to the extent of the damage, Baltic told the outlet.
“Everything in that living room is completely destroyed. There’s nothing left in there, floors and everything, they are all gone,” he lamented.
The main issue, Baltic underscored, was the lack of smoke alarms in the home.
“That is a huge, huge way from keeping this from happening. There are countless lives that has been lost because of no smoke detectors, no smoke alarms,” he insisted.
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