JUNIOR, W.Va. — The remnants of fireworks are believed to be the cause of a mobile home fire Wednesday night in Barbour County which left four people dead.
Investigators were able to determine the fire started on one end of the wooden front porch of the trailer. Deputy State Fire Marshal Jason Baltic said after investigators dug through the debris of the fire on River Avenue in Junior they discovered a number of discarded fireworks tubes and other materials which had been placed in a trash bag.
“We found the remnants of some pyrotechnic devices within that debris. After speaking with a couple of witnesses, from what we understand they were used earlier that evening by the occupants,” Baltic explained.
He believed the materials were placed in the trash bag while they were still hot and embers from the fireworks started the fire which spread to the porch and then to the mobile home itself.
Inside, Baltic said there were no working smoke alarms found and the front door was the only door in the trailer.
“The only actual door was there on the front porch. Unfortunately, that’s where the fire was. Obviously once there’s smoke and fire, people can get very disoriented very quickly and think they are in one part of the house when they are in another and unfortunately they just weren’t able to make it out,” he explained.
It’s unclear if the victims were asleep when the fire started, but Baltic said evidence indicated they were awakened at some point. One of those inside the home was one of the callers to 9-1-1 and another of the victims had tried to call another individual outside the home.
Heading into the 4th of July weekend, Baltic stressed the need to make sure you always have water on hand when shooting off fireworks in case of a mishap. He also stressed the leftover materials should be thoroughly soaked in water to prevent just such a disaster.
“Soak them down and definitely don’t instantly put them in the trash or cardboard boxes or anything like that. These things are extremely high heat and they can definitely cause fires,” said Baltic.
The names of the victims were not released, however, they included two men, ages 61 and 27 and two women ages 23 and 26.