11-year-old dies day after deadly D.C. house fire

WASHINGTON - An 11-year-old boy has died from his injuries a day after a fire swept through a Northeast home, killing five people in the District's deadliest residential fire in three decades.

Officer Kenny Bryson says the boy died Friday at Washington Hospital Center. He did not know the time of the death.

Fire officials said the boy suffered from severe smoke inhalation and had been on life support since Thursday.

The victims all lived in the home of Oscar Wilson and Michelle Smith Wilson and were considered members of their extended family.

At least two of the dead are family members. They are identified as Michelle Wilson's father, Charles Smith, 72, and the couple's nephew, Joseph Wilson, 10. The daughter of a close friend of Oscar Wilson, Tawana Gant, also died, as did her boyfriend 23-year-old Keith Nelson and their 5-year-old daughter, Kaniya Gant. Four other people were injured in the fire.

The cause of the New Year's Day fire at 1014 Jackson Street in Northeast was electrical.

"The fire did start in the void space between the basement and the first floor," says D.C. Fire Chief Dennis Rubin.

"We're trying to isolate the exact piece of equipment, but six of the home's electrical circuit breakers had clicked off because of some overpower reason or some problem with the electrical circuitry in the home."

Rubin said the home had a hard-wired smoke detector and one that operated by battery alone. Sources tell WTOP the hard-wired detector was an older model, which was not equipped with a built-in battery backup.

The battery-operated unit worked with the battery that was still inside it when it was tested after the fire. It's not clear whether it operated during the fire, or whether those inside heard it.

"That fire probably burned for a bit undetected by the family in this home," Rubin says.

Firefighters were on the scene within two minutes of receiving a call about the blaze. When they arrived they found the home fully engulfed.

Like many of the homes built in the District between 1900 and 1950, the bungalow-style house had a balloon frame. That type of home has space inside the walls to allow effective heating and cooling. At the same time, it conducts smoke and heat with deadly efficiency.

On Friday, fire officials urged homeowners to install both hard-wired and battery-operated smoke detectors to prevent similar tragedies.

Fire officials are trying to make families more aware of the need to have smoke detectors, to test them on a monthly basis and to regularly change their batteries.

"We'll be on knocking doors, about 400 or 500 today, installing smoke detectors," Rubin said, as he stood in front of the now-boarded up home.

Montgomery County Interim Fire Chief Richard Bowers, who attended Friday's news conference, encouraged families to devise and practice fire escape plans. If smoke is encountered in a home, he encourages residents to stay low and crawl out of the home.

Smoke detectors cut the risk of fire deaths in half, Rubin says. Nationwide, about 50 percent of homes do not have smoke detectors. In D.C., Rubin says the percentage is closer to 70 percent.

In addition to smoke detectors, fire officials are encouraging people to install carbon monoxide detectors and sprinklers, if possible.

"Residential sprinklers would have also helped in this situation or other situations," says Burt Clark of the National Fire Academy, who was a District firefighter in 1970s.

The fire was the deadliest residential fire since 1979 when 10 people died.

Sadly, for the Wilson family, grief is no stranger. In January 2007, their 17-year-old daughter Taleshia Ford was killed by a stray bullet at a Northwest go-go club. The night before the fire the Wilsons had attended a vigil for juvenile murder victims, and they've been planning a memorial for the second anniversary of Ford's death on Jan. 20.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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