Fire Kills Four Children Parents Hurt While Trying To Save Kids

Four children died early Saturday in a North Side house fire that ranks as the city’s worst in 40 years.

Rob and Jill Schliebe’s four boys - Derek, 8, Loren, 6, Steven, 4, and Justin, 2 - died of smoke inhalation and burns in the two-story home at 1327 N. Adams.

Their parents were in serious but stable condition at Deaconess Medical Center late Saturday with injuries suffered in a futile attempt to save their children.

Fire inspectors did not know the cause of the fire late Saturday.

Fire officials said the Schliebes appeared to be trying to rescue their children before they jumped out of a second-story bedroom window.

The Schliebes, injured and unable to move as they lay in their yard, were yelling, “The kids! The kids! There’s kids in there,” said neighbor Richard Shane.

The bodies of all four children were found in Derek and Loren’s bedroom on the south side of the house. Neighbors said the two younger boys slept in a room on the north side of the house.

Rob Schliebe, 29, broke his back in the fall and underwent surgery Saturday. He also suffered burns on his face, head and hands.

Jill Schliebe, 28, dislocated her hip, broke her knee and had cuts over her right eye. She underwent surgery Saturday morning and was in serious but stable condition.

Spokane fire inspectors said the rental home, owned by Spokane resident Dan Houk, was too badly burned to immediately determine what caused the fire.

A smoke detector apparently was not operating when the fire started, said Spokane fire battalion chief Joe Stapleton.

“There was so much damage to the walls, we couldn’t tell if there was one there,” he said.

Emergency operators received a call at 1:28 a.m. from Jill Schliebe, who said her house was on fire. Stapleton said Schliebe could be heard telling someone in the house to “come down here.” A child was crying and coughing in the background, Stapleton said.

Neighbors said Jill and Rob Schliebe slept in a downstairs room.

Two minutes after the emergency call, neighbor Ruth Danel - still awake after playing bingo Friday evening - called 911 to report a fire visible through most of the downstairs windows of the house.

While she was on the phone, Danel heard the windows being blown out by the force of the blaze and saw flames shooting out the front door.

Soon after, she saw fire in an upstairs bedroom.

“It just went up like a tinderbox,” said Danel, who lives across the street.

“The first thing I thought was, ‘My God, those kids slept upstairs.”’

Shane, who lives a block away, tried to rescue the family before the firefighters arrived by jumping on the eaves above the front door and attempting to enter an upstairs window.

Beaten back by intense heat, he tried several doors and a window on the ground level, but all were locked or too hot to open. The front door was open, but flames were pouring out, Shane said.

“It was so hot I couldn’t keep my hands in front of (the window),” said Shane.

Dale Waite, who lives four blocks away, said he saw flames shooting 50 feet into the night sky.

Stapleton said the fire was a slow burn that suddenly exploded, making a last-minute rescue nearly impossible.

“They had zero escape time.”

Dick Schuerman, the battalion chief initially called to the fire, said firefighters knew when they arrived at 1:35 that children were trapped upstairs. A ladder was placed against the window of an upstairs bedroom, but the blaze was too hot for firefighters to attempt to rescue the children, Schuerman said.

“If they had gotten inside, we would have had a bigger tragedy than we have,” said Schuerman.

Firefighters attacking the flames from the ground level had the blaze under control in 10 minutes, said Schuerman.

Fire officials speculated that the fire smoldered in the downstairs bedroom for a long time, then suddenly erupted in flames, breaking the downstairs windows. City Fire Marshal Garry Miller said the fire probably started in some bedding or in a dresser, then exploded when the flames “broke through and got some oxygen.

“At 1,200 degrees there is a flash-over, so everything that burns ignites at once,” said Miller.

Houk, the landlord, said the Schliebes have been his tenants for a year and a half. They were model renters who rarely complained and paid their rent on time.

Houk had not heard about the fire when called by a reporter and repeatedly said, “No, no.”

“They were absolutely the most wonderful renters in the world,” he said.

Houk bought the house in 1993 and renovated the old electrical system, putting in a fuse box and new carpeting.

Houk said the home had smoke detectors, as is required by federal law. He didn’t know if they were operating.

Stapleton said a functioning smoke alarm would have prevented the tragedy.

“There is no doubt that would have saved lives,” said Stapleton.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo; Map of fatal house fire area

The following fields overflowed: BYLINE = Jonathan Martin Staff writer Staff writers Bruce Krasnow and Brian Coddington contributed to this report.