Monday, January 31, 2000
Kerosene heaters suspected in fire that killed mom, 2 toddlers
BY CINDI ANDREWS
The Cincinnati Enquirer
FELICITY — A 27-year-old woman and two of her four children died in a fire in their mobile home Sunday morning despite neighbors' efforts to rescue them.
The victims — identified by friends and neighbors as Felicia Augst, her 3-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son — apparently were all in one bedroom trying to stay warm with kerosene heaters because their furnace had gone out, said Felicity Fire Chief Jim Shafer.
The heaters probably caused the fire, he said.
Neighbor Danielle Campbell noticed the fire shortly before 11 a.m. when she saw smoke out her living room window and heard her dogs barking. She sent a friend, Francisco Morales, and his nephew, Cesar Morales, to try to save the Vine Street family while she called 911.
Cesar, 16, hurt his hand breaking out the trailer's windows.
“We tried to go inside,” said Francisco Morales, but the smoke was too thick. “We don't see inside, nothing.”
Mrs. Augst's husband, Michael, had been taken to Clermont Mercy Hospital on Saturday night for unknown reasons and was not in the home, firefighter Mike Brill said. Her two older children, boys about 8 and 10 years old, were at their grandparents' house, Mr. Brill said.
“Felicia seemed like she was always happy,” said family friend Deanna Johnson. “If something had to be done in her family ... she was the one to do it.”
There was no sign Sunday evening of the family dog, T-Bone, in the older-model mobile home, which was destroyed. It was unclear whether the home had smoke detectors, Chief Shafer said.
“It was so hot in there that they weren't able to go in there and dig around,” Mr. Brill said. Chief Shafer said it was the first fatal fire in at least 16 years in Felicity, about 30 miles southwest of Cincinnati in Clermont County.
Twenty-six of the town's 30 firefighters helped battle the blaze.
The state fire marshal's office and Clermont County authorities are investigating the blaze.
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