A house fire at 321 N. First St. took three lives and destroyed a one-story home early Monday.
Wayne Gregg, 48, Megan Frasier, 14, and Kalee Frasier, 12, all died in the blaze.
While the fire is still under investigation, preliminary findings have led officials to believe smoke inhalation may have been the cause of the deaths.
The blaze started about 4 a.m., and fire officials responded minutes after Nicole Fraiser, mother of the two children, alerted neighbors to the fire with her screams.
“The mother of the children did make it out of the house fire,” said Judah Sheppard of the Oklahoma State Fire Marshal’s office.
“She was in the laundry room trying to get her kids’ clothing ready for school, when she came out of the house and saw the fire and went to look for someone to call 911.”
Firefighters from Ringling arrived at the scene in minutes and battled the blaze for about another half hour.
“It was fully engulfed,” Sheppard said. “But they maintained a structural foundation for us, which made it easy for us to make a prompt body recovery.”
Sheppard said preliminary investigation points to the kitchen as the room where the fire started.
The stove could have been in use to heat the home, and an electric blanket was in use, which could have been improperly placed underneath bedsheets. And a pickup truck parked near the home expelled fuel, which contributed to the fire, he said.
“It’s a total loss. The family has no insurance. We have been unable to find any smoke detectors in there. This is what we’re coming across in these fires,” said Sheppard, who added that there have been six fatalities this year in and around Atoka, Newcastle and Jefferson counties.
For Leiisa Chastain, the loss of her two cousins hit home.
“I’m going to miss them very much, because they were over here all the time,” Chastain said. “I prayed to God that they would get out of the house, but they didn’t.”
Chastain said she saw flickering and heard a loud crackling noise, when she looked outside her window and saw flames coming from the home of her cousin’s house next door and heard screaming.
“I was out there with Nikki’s mom,” she said. “I took my walker out there and she just fell into my arms crying, saying ‘my babies are gone. Why couldn’t it be me?’ And I asked myself the same question.”
Keith Howard, 221-6542
keith.howard@ardmoreite.com
