Seven students die in Ocean Isle fire

OCEAN ISLE BEACH -- An intense fire ravaged a beach house packed with college students early today, killing seven and leaving little left of the structure but its charred frame and the stilts on which it stood.

Mayor Debbie Smith said six people were also hospitalized. All were treated and released a short time later, include one survivor who jumped from the burning home and into an adjacent waterway. Smith said officials had accounted for everyone believed to be inside.

"There were three kids sitting on the ground screaming," said newspaper deliverer Tim Burns, who called 911 after seeing a column of smoke rising from the house. "There was one guy hanging out the window, and he jumped in the canal. I know he got out because he was yelling for a girl to follow him."

Burns said he didn't know whether that girl was able to escape.

Officials at the University of South Carolina said six of the students who died were students at the school in Columbia; the seventh attended Clemson University. The six who survived were also from USC. Smith said the private home was being used by the owner's daughter and a group of her friends.

"These are young people in the prime of their life. They had so much to look forward to, and it's just profoundly tragic," said University of South Carolina President Andrew Sorensen.

Classes will be held Monday, but Sorensen said students will have access to counselors, residence hall advisers and clergy being brought in to help.

Dennis Pruitt, dean of students at the university, said the fire appears to have affected two Greek organizations — the Delta Delta Delta sorority and the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. Earlier in the day, a campus minister at the sorority house declined to comment, as did an adult who answered the door at the fraternity house. Messages left with the national headquarters of the organizations were not immediately returned.

Pruitt said the school had not confirmed the identities of the students who perished, and he urged members of the two organizations to call their parents. At a nighttime news conference, he said identifications of the dead may not be complete until Wednesday.

The fire struck the house on Scotland Street sometime before 7 a.m. and burned completely through the first and second floors, leaving only part of the home's frame standing. The waterfront home — named "Changing Channels" — was built on stilts, forcing firefighters to climb a ladder onto the house's deck to reach the first living floor. Smith said the house was a total loss.

"We ran down the street to get away," said Nick Cain, a student at the University of North Carolina who was staying at a house about 100 feet away. "The ash and the smoke were coming down on us. We were just trying to get away."

Cain was one of the dozens of college students who filled at least four houses within a block of the burned home. Neighbor Jeff Newsome said the students were going back and forth between the houses all weekend long.

"We didn't have any big complaints," Newsome said. "The lights were on all night. They were having a good time."

Winds blowing flames over the water, and not toward any of the other residences on the tightly packed row of vacation homes, kept the fire from spreading. The intense heat kept Burns and others from attempting a rescue, although he said he had to fight to keep several of those who escaped from trying. When he approached the front door, he said, it was much too hot to open.

"When I was going up to the entry way, you could hear the windows above me explode," Burns said. "When I knew the flames had taken over, I don't think I've ever felt as helpless in my life."