Investigation into Indiana house fire that killed 6 siblings fails to determine what caused blaze

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — An investigation into a northern Indiana house fire that killed six siblings in January failed to determine what caused the deadly blaze, although electrical items were identified as “potential ignition sources,” the state fire marshal said Wednesday.

The probe of the South Bend fire ended with the “cause undetermined," said State Fire Marshal Steve Jones, calling that a common determination in fires "when a definitive cause cannot be established despite exhaustive efforts.”

He said at a news conference that investigators found “no evidence of criminal activity or arson” but the fire’s precise cause could not be determined even though they left “no stone unturned in the quest for answers.”

“In short, this cause determination reflects the fact that the evidence does not point definitively in one direction or another as to what exactly ignited the fire,” Jones said, adding that there was "simply not enough scientific data to identify a single ignition source.”

He said electrical items in the home were identified as “potential ignition sources” but investigators could not prove definitively that any of those started the fire.

Jones said the investigation involving his office, the South Bend Fire Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives found that the fire began shortly after 6 p.m. on Jan. 21 in the home's first-floor family room/dining room when the six children and their father were upstairs on the second floor.

Although smoke detectors were found in the home, he said it could not be determined if any of those alarms sounded during the fire. Jones said no witnesses heard a smoke alarm sounding and neither did the children's father, who was the fire's sole survivor.

The Smith siblings — 11-year-old Angel, 10-year-old Demetris, 9-year-old Davida, 5-year-old Deontay, 4-year-old D’Angelo and 17-month-old Faith — died after a fire engulfed the home in the city of over 100,000 just south of the Michigan state line, with Angel succumbing in a hospital days after the blaze.

Their father escaped by jumping out of a second-floor window before he tried to enter the home's first floor to save his children, Jones said. The injured father told firefighters he was forced back by heavy smoke and wind-driven flames.