Fire Deaths | featured news

A fire tore through a two-story home that had no functioning smoke detectors Saturday in West Virginia's capital city, killing eight family members, including six children, the city's mayor said. Charleston Mayor Danny Jones said he believed it was the city's deadliest fire in at least six decades. Jones said only one smoke detector was found in a cabinet, and it was not working.

South Plainfield mayor Matthew Anesh says smoke alarms were not working in a portion of a home when a fire killed five members of a family -- four of them children.

A fast-burning fire destroyed half of a duplex home early Thursday, killing five members of a family and injuring four others, authorities said.

Josh Powell planned the deadly house fire that killed him and his young sons for some time, dropping toys at charities and sending final emails to multiple acquaintances before the blaze, authorities said Monday....

A research assistant was fatally burned when chemicals burst into flame. Her death three years ago has focused attention on safety issues. Felony charges have been filed against the University of California and a UCLA chemistry professor in connection with a laboratory fire that killed a staff research assistant three years ago. On Dec. 29, 2008, Sheharbano "Sheri" Sangji, 23, was severely burned over nearly half of her body when air-sensitive chemicals burst into flames during an experiment and ignited her clothing. Sangji, who was not wearing a protective lab coat, died 18 days later.

A woman burned to death in the elevator of her Brooklyn apartment building Saturday after a man ambushed her, sprayed her with liquid and set her afire with a Molotov cocktail, police said. The unidentified man was waiting for the woman, who was in her 60s, when the elevator doors opened to her floor of the Prospect Heights building. The man sprayed her with an accelerant and set her on fire, New York City police spokesman Paul Browne said.

Hundreds of Chicago firefighters worked to put out a high-rise fire that left one person dead and 12 people injured.

A health official says the death toll from a day care center fire in northern Mexico has risen to 46 following the death of a toddler.

Twenty-seven children were killed and more than 100 others were injured Friday when their daycare center caught fire in the northwestern state of Sonora, the local governor said, citing figures from the state attorney's office.

A verdict has been reached in the penalty phase of the trial of a man convicted of murdering five federal firefighters who were overrun by a wildfire he ignited in Southern California in 2006.