Girl, 10, who died in burning eastern Iowa house identified; week's fire toll reaches 8
An Onslow child who perished after heat and flames repelled emergency personnel trying to rescue her from an upstairs bedroom of her burning home was identified Saturday as Geniyah Morgan.
The 10-year-old fifth-grader, who died early Friday, was the sixth child among eight people who lost their lives in a week of lethal house fires across Iowa.
A 2-year-old died Monday in a fire in a Walcott mobile home, followed Wednesday by the deaths of four children in a blaze that roared through their Mason City home. Another fire Thursday in Cedar Rapids killed two adults.
Jones County Sheriff Greg Graver released Geniyah's name and that of her mother, Brittany Qualls, 35, who managed to escape the fire with four other children, ranging in age from 1 to 8.
The fire originated in the kitchen, according to Graver, who on Friday told the Des Moines Register that it had been "a terrible week in eastern Iowa for fatal fires."
The body of Morgan was taken to the state Medical Examiner's Office in Ankeny.
More:'A terrible week': Another fatal fire confirmed in Iowa
Three of the other children and Qualls were treated at a hospital and released. A fourth was taken to the University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics and was released late Friday, the sheriff's news release said.
In Mason City, a statement published Friday in the Globe Gazette newspaper from John and Angela Mcluer, the parents of the four children who died there, thanked the community and the school district, where the children had been students, for their support. It said a memorial service will be held after John Mcluer is released from a hospital where he was taken with daughter Ravan, the only other survivor of the fire, for treatment of burns.
According to Iowa fire marshal records, the Mason City death toll was the largest in a single fire in Iowa since May 2017, when four people died in a fire in an apartment building in Des Moines' Waveland neighborhood. With the past week's losses, at least 35 people have died in fires in Iowa in 2022, up from 29 in all of 2021, the records show.
The winter holiday period typically is a time of increased residential fire risk, according to the National Fire Data Center of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency. In a report, it cited numerous reasons, including use of space heaters and fireplaces as the weather cools, faulty holiday lighting and cooking accidents.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Eastern Iowa girl, 10, who died in house fire identified
