A Mother and her two young daughters died after their home in the 2000 blocking of Byington Place caught fire Friday morning.Captain Mike Bellamy is the public information officer for the Tallahassee fire department. He says a neighbor called about the fire at about 7:23 a.m.
“Around five minutes later the first fire truck arrived and reported heavy smoke coming from the single story residence. They made entry. And found heavy fire in one area, looks like the kitchen and also discovered two children and one adult,” Bellamy says.
The mother, a teacher at Sable Palm Elementary School had already succumbed to the fire. Her daughters were taken to a local hospital for treatment where they later died.
Local leaders are mourning the loss. Mayor Andrew Gillum posted on Twitter his thoughts and prayers are with the family and entire school community. And Bellamy says school officials are working to ensure counselors are in place to help students and staff through the grieving process.
“We did work with Leon County schools as the deceased adult is a teacher at Sabal Palm elementary and the two children that died are also students at the elementary. So we did work with Leon County schools throughout the incident so that they could provide grief counselors there at their school when the information became available,” Bellamy says.
Officials say they believe the fire started in the home’s kitchen, but are continuing to investigate the cause.