Two girls perish in house fire

Two young girls are dead after a fire raged through their duplex home Saturday morning on the 10900 block of Tulip Place.

The girls, ages 5 and 8, were asleep in a downstairs bedroom while their parents were asleep upstairs with their 7-month-old and 3-year-old siblings. No one was home in the other half of the duplex which was unscathed.

According to Deputy Fire Marshal Ed Iskra, early indications are that the blaze started downstairs in the living room. The fire quickly spread and when the first crews from Central Kitsap Fire & Rescue arrived shortly after getting the call at 4:49 a.m., the whole house was in flames.

"Several people were outside yelling to the firefighters that there were still kids downstairs," said CKFR spokeswoman Lindsy Ingram. "The parents managed to get the (younger children) out and desperately tried to get downstairs to get the other girls out but didn't make it."

Facing a wall of heat and flames, firefighters were able to retrieve one of the girls although they were unable to resuscitate her.

A Coroner's report on the girls' exact cause of death is expected by Monday afternoon.

According to Ingram, the family is staying with other family members in the area.

These were the first fire-related fatalities in Central Kitsap since April 2002 when 33-year-old Vincent Bouthillier died of smoke inhalation in a home on Anderson Hill Road.

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