Children Killed In Kansas Metro Fires Indentified

Two residence fires- one Saturday morning in KC-KS and another Saturday night in Overland Park- snuffed out the lives of two young people- and their names have been made public by those fire agencies' people.

As reported exclusively here at CSW Saturday morning- a fire at 351 North 31st Street in Kansas City Kansas killed "3-year-old Yair Ramos."


The fire was in a 1-1/2-story structure-originally a single-family residence that was now divided up into apartments- with 12 occupants.

All but young Ramos made it out alive.

Sometime around 5:30 a.m.- the residence/apartments caught fire- and KC-KS Fire dispatchers sent 5 companies and EMS at 5:38 a.m.- an within 3 minutes Pumper 11 arrives seeing smoke and fire coming from the structure from down the street.

Fire fighters then find a woman- "42-year-old Claudia Gonzales-" crumpled outside on the front lawn- burned.

Later reports were that Ms. Gonzales discovered the fire- and risked the smoke and painful heat to rescue her 3 children.

The mother suffered burns on nearly half her body before collapsing in the front yard- unable to rescue her son Yair.


She's still in the intensive care unit according to a source at the University of Kansas Medical Center.


As tragic as that fire- CSW would sadly report another in Overland Park KS late Saturday night.

Sometime after 10:45 p.m. a fire broke out in a bedroom of a 2-family duplex in the 10200 block of West 86th Terrrace.

Around 10:55 p.m. fire companies from OP and Lenexa got the call.

"Eight-year-old Taylor Jackson-" visiting a friend who lived there on a "sleep-over" and in that bedroom- was overcome by smoke and burned by the heat before OPFD firefighters could reach her within minutes of their arrival around 11 p.m..

One adult and another child had managed to escape- with the child treated at the scene by MEDACT-EMS people for minor smoke inhalation.

Young Jackson- however- later passed away from her injuries at the hospital where a MEDACT crew took her.

 

The really tragic part of both of these fires was that in both instances- there were no working smoke or heat detectors.
 
 
At any rate- CSW offers our sincere condolences to the family and friens of both of these young fire victims from the first weekend of October 2011.