Three young girls are dead and their mother is in critical condition after a fire broke out in their Silver Spring apartment early Thursday morning.
Thirty-year-old Elsie Nuka, 4-month-old Makenzie Foncham and her sisters, 2-year-old Megan and 4-year-old Chanelle, were found unconscious and not breathing when firefighters arrived at their ground-floor apartment at about 5 a.m. Thursday, Montgomery County fire spokesman Pete Piringer said.
The girls died a short time later at local hospitals, and Nuka was in critical condition at Baltimore Shock Trauma, he said.
Piringer said the fire was “relatively confined,” but 60 firefighters from both Montgomery and Prince George’s counties responded to the incident after numerous 911 calls reported smoke coming from the building at Windsor CourtApartments on Castle Boulevard off Briggs Chaney Road.
Investigators have ruled the fire an accident and believe it was caused when the mother got up in the middle of the night to sterilize baby bottles. Piringer said he believes a burner in the kitchen was left on and caused a plastic bottle warmer to ignite.
Nuka tried to put out the fire by unplugging the sterilizer and throwing some of the burning materials into a bathtub, but she was overcome by the smoke, Piringer said.
The damage to the apartment building is estimated to be about $60,000, Piringer said.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
