MARMET, W.Va. — A fire in a fireplace may have been the source of a Wednesday night blaze in Marmet which left a father and his young son hospitalized.
The blaze broke out about 11:15 p.m. at a two-story home on Maryland Avenue, Kanawha County Fire Coordinator C.W. Sigman said.
“The house is pretty good size about two-and-a-half stories and the fire was in the living room in the front left corner of the house. They contained the fire pretty good to that one little area,” Sigman said.
Firefighters arrived to learn there were two people trapped in the house, one was an infant and the other was the child’s dad.
“The child was upstairs in a bedroom in a baby bed,” said Sigman. “Michael McGee from the Marmet Fire Department was able to get up the steps, get the kid and bring him out. The child was still breathing and Kanawha County paramedics had advanced life support there and immediately started taking steps to treat the child. ”
The child is hospitalized at Women and Children’s Hospital in Charleston. The baby’s condition is not known. The father suffered burns and smoke inhalation trying to stop the fire. He’s also hospitalized.
“He had an extinguisher out trying to fight the fire,” Sigman said. “It looked like he was doing all he could to get the fire minimized and the kid out.”
Other family members escaped safely and some had gone to pickup food when the fire started.
The investigation into a cause is still ongoing, but it’s speculated the fireplace was likely the source. Sigman said the fire damage was not as severe as one would believed, but because upholstery was burning it created a lot of smoke throughout the house.
“We think it was an accidental fire where they may have been making smores or something like that,” Sigman added. “That may have caused it.”