Campuses Mourn; Agents Seek Answers: Investigators Think Lethal Blaze Was Accidental, Official Says

Oct 30, 05:34 AM

Current Headlines: By Jessica Rocha, The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C.

Oct. 30--OCEAN ISLE BEACH -- Investigators sifting through the charred evidence from a fire-gutted house where seven South Carolina college students died are juggling what's known, what's possible and what's yet to be discovered.

They know firefighters found the bodies of all who died early Sunday in the top-floor bedrooms of a two-story house perched on pilings. They know that five students who escaped the deadly, wind-whipped blaze were on the lower floor and that a sixth leapt to safety from the top floor.

Led by federal and state agents, the fire sleuths think the deadly flames first flared near or on a deck in back of the house on Scotland Street, on a side facing a canal, Mayor Debbie Smith said. Investigators also think the fire was accidental, she said.

But what they don't know yet is the source of a fire that winds quickly caused to roar and consume the wooden house with the vinyl siding, bringing a tragic end to what had been a fun weekend of watching football at the beach.

It is a search that could take days or months, depending on the amount of physical evidence the fire left behind. Some fires leave only circumstantial evidence of their causes.

"In these fires, the processing takes time," said Adam Perry a fire investigator with the Raleigh Fire Department.

The Sunday morning fire swept through the cream-colored wooden house and left no escape for more than half the 13 students sleeping inside.

Frantic calls from unidentified neighbors, a man on a fishing pier, a man on a bridge and a man who said he was calling "out on the ocean" flooded 911 dispatchers. Among the 19 calls released Monday by Brunswick County emergency officials, one woman said she saw a man jump from the house's second floor.

Another told an emergency operator: "If anyone is in the house, I doubt they are alive at this point."

The names of the dead -- four women and three men between the ages of 18 and 20 -- have not yet been released officially by the N.C. medical examiner's office. But The State newspaper in Columbia, S.C., compiled a list of the victims through officials, family members, friends and other sources Monday.

Now, memorials have been set up at the University of South Carolina, where six of the deceased studied, and at Clemson University, which lost one student.

"It really means a lot to us that so many people are here for us through these hard times," Lauren Hodge, president of the Delta Delta Delta sorority's USC chapter, said in a video webcast sponsored by the university.

Smith said the town police were investigating the fire with North Carolina's State Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. She said she hoped to have a report in a few days.

Early indications don't point to any structural problems with the house itself.

Built in 2000, the six-bedroom, 2,533-square-foot house had been built mostly of wood and sat on stilts, according to Brunswick County property records. The exterior was sheathed with vinyl siding, and the home had at least one prefabricated fireplace, according to the records.

Like most homes and motels in Ocean Isle, the house had an open parking area underneath and two floors above.

Fire Chief Robert Yoho said the house was a private dwelling, not a rental cottage, and had the required smoke alarms in bedrooms and a nearby hallway. It lacked a sprinkler system, which was not required.

Strong winds and the home's wooden construction were a factor, Yoho said.

Town officials said their inspections department had no specific information on the house because records on building permits are only kept for a few years.

The home, called "Changing Channels," belonged to the family of Katherine Auman, a USC student, according to the family's pastor, the Rev. Tony Medlin of St. Luke's United Methodist Church in Hartsville, S.C.

Auman is a 2007 pledge of the Delta Delta Delta sorority, according to a sorority Web site hosted by the university. She was in the house when the fire began but escaped, Medlin said.

She was hospitalized Monday night at Carolina Pines Regional Medical Center in Hartsville, where she was listed in stable condition.

In a prepared statement delivered at the hospital Monday evening, her father, Chip Auman, said the family was "living a nightmare."

"Our lives changed forever when we received a phone call from our daughter yesterday," Auman said. "A call that no one ever wants to receive."

Students from the two Carolina schools spent the weekend watching football and cooking out.

Rebecca Wood, a UNC-Chapel Hill student who got to know some of the South Carolina crowd over the weekend, said she watched her new acquaintances cook food on a grill in the doomed home's carport.

"There wasn't a party," Wood said. "Nothing was out of hand. Nothing was out of line."

After the fire Sunday, investigators interviewed the UNC-CH students at town hall to seek clues to the origin of the fire and to try to identify possible victims.

"I tried looking back on my camera to see if they were in the background of any of the pictures, to give the police some faces," said UNC-CH junior Stephanie Wilkins. Unfortunately, there weren't any shots of the fire victims.

Sharp contrast

On Monday, the sight of the charred remains of the home drew sightseers' eyes away from Ocean Isle's scenic oceanfront. Its roof and windows missing and most of the sides blackened, the destroyed home offered a sharp contrast to the other white and pastel houses throughout the small beach town.

Smith, the town mayor, said Ocean Isle is primarily a family-oriented town and only about half of the 3,200 houses and condominiums are rentals. She contrasted Ocean Isle's laid-back lifestyle with beach resorts such as Myrtle Beach, S.C., to the south, which often draws rowdy revelers, motorcycle gatherings or hordes of college students.

"We're not like Daytona Beach on spring break," she said. "There's not much going on after sunset. It's not a big party place."

Smith said the fire's consequences were grimly different from those of the storms that batter the North Carolina coast.

"We've had our share of hurricanes," Smith said. "We've never had anything like this."

jessica.rocha@newsobserver.com or (919) 932-2008

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