Ocean Isle Beach Fire Kills 7 Students

Oct 29, 01:31 PM

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

Oct. 29--OCEAN ISLE BEACH -- It had been a beach weekend for the South Carolina college students, filled with football, cookouts, late nights and new friends.

Now seven of them are dead, victims of a Sunday morning fire that engulfed a two-story house and allowed just six to escape. The fire, which erupted before 7 a.m., left the house a charred, roofless skeleton.

"There was no part of the house that was not covered with flames," said Stephanie Wilkins, a UNC-Chapel Hill junior staying at the house next door. "It was completely -- it was just completely covered and engulfed in flames."

The State Bureau of Investigation was continuing to look into the cause and origin of the fire Sunday night.

Officials had not released the victims' names Sunday night because their relatives had not yet been notified. University of South Carolina officials said six students who died were from the school in Columbia, The Associated Press reported; the seventh attended Clemson University. The six who survived were also from USC. The home was being used by the owner's daughter and a group of her friends, Mayor Debbie Smith said.

The fire was discovered by newspaper carrier Tim Burns, who said he called 911 after seeing a column of smoke on his route.

"I don't think I've ever felt so helpless, because I knew there were people in there," Burns said.

The intense heat kept Burns from attempting a rescue, although he said he had to fight to keep several of those who escaped from trying to rescue others.

Raleigh resident Jeff Newsome, who had been staying at his family's place about a block away, joined Burns at the scene. He said they saw one person stranded in the flaming house.

"Both of us were screaming for the guy to go ahead and jump," Newsome said.

The young man did, and Newsome said he saw him land on a car. He said he didn't know the condition of the young man.

Investigators were looking into how many people jumped from the house, Ocean Isle board member C.D Blythe said. He said one person went into a canal near the burning house. Both jumpers were among the six who were treated and released from the hospital.

Rick Wylie of Greenville, S.C., said his son Tripp leaped from the burning home and was "scuffed up a bit."

"He's in shock," Wylie told the AP. "It's just an incomprehensible thing for these parents."

In the hours after the fire, relatives gathered at a small chapel across from the town hall. They declined to speak with reporters.

More than 30 UNC students who belong to the Alpha Phi Omega service fraternity were staying on the same street as the house that burned, including Wilkins and Rebecca Wood, chapter president. They rented two homes to hold a pledge weekend.

The Chapel Hill group met the South Carolina students, who school officials said were members of the Delta Delta Delta sorority and Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. Members of the two groups bonded, watching football, grilling out, and joking.

UNC-CH sophomore Alex Koonce said they joked about the rivalry between the two Carolina schools and how both had lost their football games that day. Koonce stayed at the South Carolina students' house dancing, talking and listening to music until about 4:30 a.m., when he walked back to one of the houses rented by the UNC students.

About 7 a.m., Wilkins and Wood were awakened by yells and knocking after some students noticed the intense glow of the burning Scotland Street house.

"I was still in bed," said Wilkins, a junior. "I thought it was raining outside."

A friend opened a door.

"And right as he opened the door, ash and smoke and embers started pouring in," Wilkins said. "The fire alarms went off in our house."

Wood said, "You could feel the heat. The embers were flowing onto our porches."

Fire fighters arrived within four minutes of receiving the call and got the fire under control in 30 minutes. Perched on stilts, the home sits about two blocks from the beach on one of a series of peninsulas, each packed with houses and connected by canals. Winds blowing flames over the water, and not toward other homes, kept the fire from spreading.

Once the fire was under control, authorities blocked the view of the scene with a blue tarp. But neighbor Bob Alexander said he saw investigators removing bodies from the gutted house early Sunday afternoon. "It's terrible to see somebody's children come out of that house this way," he told The Associated Press.

Later Sunday in Columbia, grief counselors and a university chaplain were dispatched to the USC campus' Delta Delta Delta sorority. A minister at the sorority house declined to comment, as did a person who answered the door at the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity house.

"These are young people in the prime of their life," Andrew Sorensen, president of the University of South Carolina, said Sunday night. "They had so much to look forward to, and it's just profoundly tragic."

Sorensen said classes will be held today, the AP reported. Students will have access to counselors, residence hall advisers and clergy.

Around sundown Sunday, police cars and yellow tape still blocked streets near the burned house. Neighbors ambled by on foot and on bicycle, took in the scene and walked off. A firetruck was still at the scene and had just finished spraying the house.

Koonce, the UNC student, said the events left him stunned.

"It's shocking, really," he said. "Just to meet some people and hang out with them all night. Then the next morning they are gone."

By Jessica Rocha and Jerry Allegood. Staff writers Sam LaGrone and Eric Frederick and The (Columbia, S.C.) State and The (Myrtle Beach, S.C.) Sun-News contributed to this report.

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