RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI
Associated Press Writer

CLAIRTON, Pa. - An early morning fire in a Pittsburgh-area town house killed three children and injured a teenager Friday.

Sisters Rachel Finn, 9, and Deausha Faulk, 6, died, along with 2-year-old Michael Zigler, the Allegheny County Medical Examiner said. Finn and Faulk lived in the home, and the younger boy was not related to them, a deputy medical examiner said.

The cause of the fire in Clairton, about 10 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, remains under investigation, but is not considered suspicious, said Donald Brucker, a deputy Allegheny County fire marshal. The fire apparently erupted in the kitchen, and there were no space heaters or anything else that could have obviously contributed to it, he said.

The children were not home alone, and the home had four working, battery-operated smoke alarms, he said.

Clairton police were the first to arrive when the fire was reported just before 1:15 a.m., Brucker said. Two officers went into the home but were driven back by smoke and heat. When firefighters arrived moments later, they entered with hoses and found the three children in two upstairs bedrooms.

Several people were outside the residence when firefighters arrived, and some of them had been inside when the fire broke out, but their identities and relationship to the children remained unclear Friday, Brucker said.

Brucker said the teenager was being treated for burns and smoke inhalation, but authorities did not immediately release a name.

The home is in a quiet, residential neighborhood on the outskirts of this suburb, home to United States Steel Corp.'s Coke Works. It is one of 420 units in a town house complex, and the family had been renting the unit for about six months.

At daybreak Friday, the smell of smoke hung in the air, but little evidence of a fire was visible from the street. The rear of the home was badly damaged, with a melted awning, broken windows and scorched bricks.

Tray Daniels, 12, lives down the block and said he knew all three children who died. His sister was good friends with Rachel Finn.

"We rode the same bus to school every day," Daniels said. "I think my sister thinks it was a dream."

A 41-year-old neighbor, who identified himself only as Jason, said he saw a lot of smoke when he arrived home from his job at Kentucky Fried Chicken and saw a woman outside screaming that her children were still inside.

"It was so hard for them to get the kids out, because the door was hot from the fire," he said of the firefighters' rescue efforts. He estimated it took at least 20 minutes to reach the children.

"It was terrible," he said.

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