The deaths of a Chesterfield County woman and her 11-year-old son early Tuesday might have been avoided if working smoke detectors had been installed in their home, said Fire Marshal Robby Dawson.
Dawson said a family member who didn't live in the Wrens Nest Road house told fire officials that smoke detectors had been taken down for painting in the home and hadn't been put back up. Tracey Johnson and her son, Jacob Layne, died in the fire. Kenneth Layne, her husband and the boy's father, was critically injured escaping the blaze.
Investigators believe the fire burned for several hours in a space inside a wall before the family awoke. "Nobody in the house seems to have been alerted by a smoke detector," he said.
In a news conference this morning at the city of Richmond Fire Department, battalion chiefs from Richmond, Henrico and Chesterfield said having at least one working smoke detector on each floor of a residence is a first line of defense against fires. To be even more cautious, there should be a smoke detector in every room.
The battalion chiefs also suggested that people never leave cooking food unattended, follow recommendations for how to use space heaters and use extension cords as designed.
Six people have been killed in fires in Chesterfield this year, making it the second most fatal year in the last decade. Seven people died in fatal fires in the county in 2007.
Five people have died this year in fires in Henrico County, and one was killed in Richmond. The last person to die in a blaze in Hanover County was in 2003.
(This has been a breaking news update. Check back for more details as they become available.)
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