A family of four and three pets died in an overnight fire in Jackson Township early Sunday morning, according to fire officials. Although firefighters arrived on scene within minutes, Fire Chief Tim Berczik said the intensity of the wind-whipped fire prevented any sort of aggressive attack on the burning, two-story home.
Neighbors called the fire in around 12:15 am on Sunday at a home in the 4300 block of Skycrest Drive in Jackson Township, which is just northwest of Canton. Firefighters arrived on scene within five minutes.
"We did find in short order that there were four occupants inside. Unfortunately, they all perished," Berczik said. "I have been with Jackson Township for 29 years and we have had fatal fires unfortunately. But we have never had 4 fatalities in one fire."
All that was left of the home was a fire-singed husk. Much the exterior walls and the entire roof had been destroyed. A steady stream of neighbors and friends filtered by the home on Sunday, including Talon Paugh, who was best friends with one of the four people killed. Although fire officials have not released the identities of the victims, they identified the deceased as being two adults and two children.
"[He] was my best friend. I’m going to miss him so much. I still can’t believe he’s gone," Paugh said as he fought back tears. "We hung out not that long ago. We sat with each other in school and everything. I loved him. I always will."
Saturday's weather brought powerful, straight-line winds throughout Northeast Ohio, knocking out power to tens of thousands of homes, including the neighborhood where the fire happened. Chief Berczik said it's unclear what role the wind had in the fire — if any at all — but the strong winds surely didn't help fire suppression efforts.
"Just the way the house sits, the fact that there was large air movement didn’t help matters. Do I think it helped spread the fire? I’m really not sure. But it definitely didn’t help," Berczik said. "That area right where this home was, power was restored around 11pm. An hour and 15 minutes thereafter, we had a fire. It’s unknown if it was related or not but we’re still looking into it."
The fire remains under investigation.
Watch live and local news any time:
Download the News 5 Cleveland app now for more stories from us, plus alerts on major news, the latest weather forecast, traffic information and much more. Download now on your Apple device here, and your Android device here.
You can also catch News 5 Cleveland on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, YouTube TV, DIRECTV NOW, Hulu Live and more. We're also on Amazon Alexa devices. Learn more about our streaming options here.
