Deadly South Sacramento Fire Leaves Family Grieving Children Lost To Blaze
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — A family is grieving the deaths of two children in South Sacramento house fire on Tuesday.
The fire started around 2:30 a.m. on Babette Way. While five people made it out of the home, two children in an upstairs bedroom could not.
Fire crews attempted interior and exterior rescues, but a collapsed stairwell slowed efforts, and a ladder couldn't reach them in time.
Ire Johnson, 11, and Israel Johnson, 6, died in the fire.
HOW TO HELP: Donations should be made out to the "Cole Family Memorial Fund" and can be dropped off at any Wells Fargo location.
The children lived with their father and other family members. The fire started downstairs where the adults were sleeping. Once they got out of the house, it was too dangerous to go back inside for the two children still inside.
LaDonna Lee woke up to a phone call no mother wants to receive.
"I can't remember what he said to me on the phone except, 'They're gone, LaDonna, they're gone. They're gone, LaDonna, they're gone. They're gone, LaDonna, they're gone,'" she said.
The children's older brother Edward was consumed with guilt for not being home when the fire broke out.
"Jogged over here from where I was at, because usually they take me to work. I wasn't here to help out," he said.
The family says the children's father, Jhada Cole, told them there was an explosion in the living room. The adults sleeping in three downstairs bedrooms escaped.
Lee says Cole told her he couldn't get back to save his children sleeping upstairs.
"I said, Pop you did all you can do. You did all you can do," she said.
Family and friends remember the two children as exceptional.
"She was very friendly," said neighbor Jackie Arroyo. "Very friendly little girl. Very nice, very polite."
"They were the smartest couple of children I've ever known," Edward Johnson said. "They didn't get in trouble."
"They're bright; they vibrate on a higher frequency, they enjoy life," Lee said. "They didn't know what to put on a Christmas list, because they didn't want for things."
Lee says the coroner told her the children died in their sleep, something she takes comfort in, knowing they weren't scared.
The fire remains under investigation.
