Early Thursday morning, a grandmother and four of her grandchildren were killed in a massive house fire in South Plainfield, NJ. The blaze killed 62-year-old Ann Jefferson, as well as grandchildren Alize, 12; Tyler, 7; Christopher, 3; and Elijah, 2. Authorities now say that there were no working smoke detectors inside the home, which was a converted 19th century farmhouse.“It was like a brick oven in there,” Fire Chief Tom Scalera said at a press conference. “It was a cauldron—more than 2,000 degrees.”
Investigators believe the fire started in the kitchen of the home; all five victims were trapped on the second floor. Police are still trying to determine what initially caused the fire, and whether a car crash in the driveway was responsible. Other family members survived the fire: mother Natalie, 33, and two of her children, Shaquan Phillips, 15, and Angel Taylor, 2, escaped unharmed. So did Dietra Jackson, 42, and her daughter, Victoria Carden, 20, who live on the other side of the farmhouse.
However, 8-year-old Jordan Jefferson remains in critical condition in the intensive care unit at the Saint Barnabas Medical Center burn center. Gerard Avalos, who owns the 143-year-old house, claimed to the Post that the smoke detectors were working when he inspected them in October. “I feel very sorry. They didn’t have much before, and they have less now,” he said, adding that the large family was on Section 8 housing.
