JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Three children were killed and four other people were critically injured in an early morning townhouse fire in Jacksonville\u2019s Mandarin area Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department crews responded to Windergate Drive just after 5 a.m. and found heavy fire on the first floor of the townhouse and heavy smoke on the second floor.<\/p>\n
Two adults and two children managed to escape before firefighters arrived. All four were taken to the hospital in critical condition.<\/p>\n
Firefighters found three children dead while searching the home.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n The fire destroyed the townhouse and damaged two nearby units. Eleven other people were displaced and are receiving help from the American Red Cross.<\/p>\n The news devastated the children\u2019s family, who are from Albania. A woman who works with the children\u2019s grandmother said the grandmother learned about the fire after arriving at work. The coworker then drove her to the scene.<\/p>\n \u201cShe didn\u2019t know nothing. Just she came in work and the people say what happened,\u201d the coworker said. \u201cJust shocked. She just cry. You can see her.\u201d<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n The damage remained visible hours after the fire. Much of the first floor was destroyed, and the devastation stretched through the back of the home and into the second floor.<\/p>\n Neighbors began placing flowers outside the townhouse as a memorial grew near the scene. Raul Contreras, who said he knew the family, described the loss as heartbreaking.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just so sad,\u201d Contreras said. \u201cReally just a sad thing to lose the children.\u201d<\/p>\n The State Fire Marshal and the Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office Homicide Unit are investigating. The cause of the fire has not been determined.<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Three children were killed and four other people were critically injured in an early morning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":382103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[14189,153322,7840,73500,12909,18583,56468,969,116,118,117,1872,153321,634,23024,115,7842,51459],"class_list":["post-382102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action","tag-bea","tag-ben_becker","tag-cbs_47","tag-deja","tag-deja_mayfield","tag-fox_30","tag-jack","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jso","tag-live_at_6","tag-local","tag-mandarin","tag-news","tag-tanika_hughes","tag-yona_gvino"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=382102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/382103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}