By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – The Lewis County coroner today said he has positively identified the three children from Friday’s house fire on Ham Hill Road in Centralia.
He released their names: Benjamin D. Tower, 12; Madeline R. Tower, 10; and Samuel J. Tower, 7.
They were students at Washington Elementary School and Edison Elementary School in Centralia.
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While he doesn’t have any reason to think they died from anything other then the house fire, Coroner Warren McLeod said, it will be awhile before he can make the official determination on the cause of their deaths.
Autopsies have been performed but his conclusions can’t be made until after further studies as well as seeing the results of toxicology tests, according to McLeod.
It can take between eight and 14 weeks to get lab results back, according to the coroner’s office.
Authorities have said the youngsters were sleeping upstairs in the split-level home while their mother was sleeping on the main floor. She was among those who phoned 911 at about 12:45 a.m.
Efforts by the mother, by a police officer and by two firefighters to rescue them were unsuccessful because of the smoke, flames and intense heat.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
Centralia Police Department detective Sgt. Carl Buster said the process can sometimes take months.
Riverside Fire Authority Assistant Chief Rick Mack, who is also the lead investigator, has said they narrowed the origin down to the area of the living room, a few feet from the front door.
The tragedy follows by just over a year a nighttime residential fire in Winlock that claimed three lives.
The family had been sleeping in the two-story house on Northeast First Street and when the father and two boys headed out the door, the mother and girls were right behind him, but didn’t make it outside.
Samantha Koehler, 31, and her two daughters Bethany Cuvreau, 4, and Tabitha Cuvreau, 2, died of smoke inhalation on February 26, 2015.
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For background, read “Heavy hearts as family loses three in Centralia house fire” from Friday March 4, 2016, here
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter
i’m guessing maybe you read so fast, you missed this paragraph that preceeded the info about last year’s fire in Winlock … “The tragedy follows by just over a year a nighttime residential fire in Winlock that claimed three lives.” –sharyn decker
this article doesn’t make sense to me..it says at the beginning of it that three children died. Then it says the mother and 2 children were right behind the father with a child going out the door so how is it only the children didn’t make it out???. It also reports the mother age 31 and two children died from the smoke. This article is the worst reporting job I have ever tried to read…it doesn’t make any sense at all…