KILL DEVIL HILLS, N.C. — A teenager and two adults thought to be vacationing in North Carolina's Outer Banks died early Friday morning in a fatal house fire.
The fire also injured three other people and decimated the waterfront home in Kill Devil Hills. All six victims were from Maryland, investigators said Monday.
The Kill Devil Hills Fire Department responded to a report of a structure fire at 2:25 a.m. Friday. Crews contained and extinguished the blaze, which had fully engulfed a rental home along North Virginia Dare Trail and damaged two neighboring properties.
"I started screaming, I was screaming to the top of my lungs," said Andrea Horine, an eyewitness. "The flames kept pouring out of the building, and it was all so quiet for a while."
Husband and wife Colleen Cohan and William Deeg, from Ashton, Maryland, and 13-year-old Sienna Farr of Silver Spring were identified as the people killed.
Farr's mother, and her mother's boyfriend, were both severely injured in the fire and airlifted to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital to be treated in the burn unit. They were both said to be in stable condition as of Monday afternoon. Farr's 16-year-old sister was also treated at a local hospital and released, according to officials.
“As far as we know, they were on vacation,” Rachel Tackett, the city’s public information officer, told The Associated Press in an interview Friday. “The cars in the driveway had tags from Maryland on them.”
Crews evacuated and safely relocated all occupants of a nearby home that sustained some fire damage, Tackett said. The property has been posted as unsafe for occupancy.
The Kill Devil Hills Fire Marshal, the Dare County Fire Marshal and the State Bureau of Investigation are investigating to determine the cause of the fire.
"Many hearts across the Outer Banks and Maryland communities are left to heal following this tragic incident," a spokesperson for the town of Kill Devil Hills said in a statement. "Please continue to keep everyone affected in your thoughts during this difficult time."