‘Spreading quick.’ Broken smoke alarms mystery may never be solved in deadly Concord fire

A mystery lingers over the Concord home where three children died in a fire — and officials say it may never be solved.

Three siblings — sisters Daniella Kueviakoe, 16, and Emmanuelle Kueviakoe, 11, and their 15-year-old brother Stephen Kueviakoe — died August 20 after a Chapman Homes unit owned and maintained by the city caught fire at about 1 a.m.

Residents of the historically Black Logan community immediately raised questions about why they never heard smoke detectors blare through the silent night.

Firefighters don’t — and won’t — have an answer, Concord Fire Chief Jake Williams told The Charlotte Observer. By the time Concord Fire Department arrived at 374 Lincoln St. SW, the smoke detectors were on the floor, melted.

The department’s investigation into the cause of the fire won’t touch on the detectors, he said. Only the liability insurance company can further investigate that, if it chooses to.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation, Williams said. Flames originally caught on fabric in a bedroom, according to a fire incident report obtained by the Observer.

Newly released 911 calls unveiled key moments before firefighters and paramedics rushed into the fire. First responders gave a play-by-play of the night during a Monday community meeting, mapping firetrucks and ambulances — and their response times — like chess pieces on a map of the city.

Concord house fire 911 calls

Copies of 911 calls obtained by the Observer provide insight into when neighbors realized the Chapman Homes unit caught fire at around 1 a.m.

“We need fire trucks, ambulances and police,” Cristiano Gray, 17, who rushed into the home, told a dispatcher. “It’s a house fire and it’s spreading quick.”

When the dispatcher asked if anyone was in the home, Gray said he wasn’t sure.

“I tried going in, but the smoke was too deep, thick. It’s spreading bad... this is gonna be something big,” he said. “Somebody lives here, there’s stuff in there... people live here, but nobody’s responding right now.”

By the time first responders arrived, all three siblings had gone into cardiac arrest, Cabarrus County’s EMS Chief Justin Browns said. Only Daniella, the eldest sister, got a pulse back. She later died at the hospital.

The fire displaced not only their mother, who briefly spoke at a vigil Friday, but also her neighbors.

“There’s a fire next door,” a woman told a dispatcher after calling 911. She said she saw flames sprouting from the unit.

“Come on!” a child screams in the background.

Response times to Concord house fire

The deadly fire has renewed community frustration about the closed Lincoln Street Bridge and its effect on both daily commutes and emergency response.

One ambulance responding to the fire was slowed by the closed and deteriorating bridge south of Chapman Homes, officials acknowledged. Despite that, emergency response times were on-par with national averages, the fire chief said at the Logan community meeting Monday.

More than 50 residents gathered to hear officials detail what happened before, during and after flames overtook the unit.

“Bridge closure had no impact on the travel route of the first six arriving fire companies,” his slideshow presentation said.

The first firetruck, dispatched from the north, arrived 5 minutes and 12 seconds after it was dispatched, Williams said. Four more arrived in the 30 seconds that followed.

The national standard is 5 minutes and 20 seconds.

While several firetrucks immediately headed toward the scene, paramedics weren’t dispatched until seven minutes after the initial 911 call, Browns said. Ambulances don’t go to a scene until a reported fire upgrades to a “working fire,” he explained. But one ambulance driver who was listening to dispatchers sent firetrucks to the home.

Lincoln Street Bridge closure

The only firetruck that normally would have been affected by the bridge was responding to a call in east Concord, and the ambulance delayed by the closed road was turning around while another unit was already on scene.

Jamie Williams, a city worker with the transportation department, gave updates about why the Lincoln Street bridge — a major corridor to the Logan community — hasn’t seen any repairs since its closure more than a year ago.

Monday was her first time speaking to the community since April, said city spokesperson Lindsay Manson.

“The notes haven’t changed one iota,” Sean Muhammad, 47, said.

The bridge that sits just south of the Logan community was built in 1971 and closed in July 2022. In 2018, the structure was expected to remain functional for 14 years, Jamie Williams said, but by 2022 it could only support about 8,000 pounds. The deadly storms and flooding from November 2020 likely plummeted its integrity, she said.

For reference, a firetruck is about 65,000 pounds, she said. The city asked for funding from the state’s department of transportation Sunday, but Williams didn’t seem hopeful. They normally slow down the process, she said.

Since July 2022, construction has begun on two nearby bridges that closed after the Lincoln Street bridge closed.

An Airport Road bridge closed in March and — after help from the North Carolina Department of Transportation — reopened by August 18.

A culvert, or water passage, on Country Club Drive closed in April. It will reopen in January, according to Manson.

“For the safety of all residents, the Lincoln Street bridge needs to be torn down and replaced,” Manson wrote in an email to the Observer. The project is much larger in scope and is a very different type of project than Country Club Drive’s stormwater pipe replacement and NCDOT’s Old Airport Road repair, she said.

Community advocate Robert Neal, 69, has lived in the neighborhood since the 1990s. He started the petition pushing leaders to prioritize the bridge soon after it closed.

“Please build a bridge or buy a road and save a life,” reads a sign outside his home a block away from Chapman Homes.

The petition has more than 1,000 signatures, hundreds of which came in the week since the death of the Kueviakoe children.