Flint, Michigan fire kills four children


By Lawrence Porter
WSWS.org
15 February 2010



Four children, aged one, two, three, four, died when a huge blazing fire consumed their apartment Saturday evening in Flint, Michigan


The closest fire station was recently closed due to budget cuts in the depressed town, once a center of the auto industry and the birthplace of the United Auto Workers. The extra response time may have cost these children their lives, according to fire department officials. By the time fire officials arrived, the apartment was fully engulfed in flames.


The apartment building also lacked functioning smoke detectors, according to media reports. The Flint Housing Committee, a public agency, runs it.


The 28-year-old father of one of the deceased children and babysitter to the others apparently fell asleep while cooking and was awakened by a neighbor after the fire began. He managed to escape out of a first floor window, but was unable to save the children who were in a bedroom on the second floor of the apartment, above the kitchen.


According to the Flint Fire Department, the fire took place around 11 pm in the kitchen of Nakia Wiley’s apartment. Nakia lost two children—Nakyrah, 4, and Dekari, 1—and a grandchild, Karrie, 2, in the fire.


“I don’t know what I am going to do without them,â€