Four people are dead as a fire blazed through and charred a South Kitsap home on Saturday morning.
Crews were called to the home in the 3800 block of Castlewood Drive near Port Orchard at 3:48 a.m. on Saturday, according to Kitsap County Sheriff's Spokesman Scott Wilson. They found a two-story house fully engulfed in flames. But once the fire was out, they could not go inside, for fear the roof, already partially collapsed, would fall further.
On Saturday afternoon, as investigators finally went inside and combed the remains of the house, they found dead two young children -- a girl of toddler age and an infant boy -- along with a woman in her 60s and a man in his late 30s.
A man in his 60s managed to escape the fire. He was transported to a local hospital; his condition was unknown.
The sheriff's office isn't yet releasing the identities of the four dead, but they are family, he confirmed.
The sheriff's office, coroner's office and the fire marshal's office have a long way to go in investigating.
"We have just started scratching the surface to find out what the cause of the fire is and what tragedy took the lives of four people," Wilson said.
Tim Hawkinson, a neighbor about a block away, awakened to the glow of the fire through trees near his home.
"The fire was very tall and glowing immensely," said Hawkinson, who noted some fire damage to home next door.
Crews from South Kitsap, Central Kitsap and Bremerton's fire departments were able to get on scene and "extinguished it very quickly," he said.
