Playground Planned for 4 Siblings Killed in Fire

A playground memorial is being planned to remember four young children killed in a Mother’s Day house fire.

The Republican-Herald reports the memorial at the Bunker Hill Playground in Pottsville, Pa. will commemorate the lives of 2-year-old Elijah Brown; 3-year-old Emily Brown; 7-year-old Jeremiah Brown; and 8-year-old Joy Brown. They were killed in the May fire while their mother was at a neighbor's house doing laundry.

The blaze also killed their father and an aunt.

Renee Williams, 37, and two friends originally wanted to do a fundraiser for the mother, Kelly Brown. But she says the idea changed to a way to honor the children, who visited the playground at Schuylkill Avenue and Pierce Street often. The memorial will feature benches, solar lights, stones inscribed with names and other landscaping.

"I'm hoping to have the park completed by the middle of July," Williams told the paper.

Fire investigators are still trying to determine the cause of the May 12 blaze, which began in the kitchen. But they say it's not considered suspicious.

Schuylkill County dispatcher Bill Lindenmuph told NBC10 that the fire broke out just before midnight at a single-family home on the 200 block of Pierce Street in Pottsville, Pa.

Pottsville fire Chief Todd March called it the worst fire he has seen in 37 years battling blazes.

"By the time our firefighters arrived on the scene there were flames everywhere -- coming out the front -- the whole building was entirely engulfed," said March.

Firefighters later found all of the bodies on the third floor of the building, which sits on a steep hillside not far from the D.G. Yuengling & Son brewery in Pennsylvania's coal country, about 90 miles northwest of Philadelphia.

Kelly Brown was doing laundry at a neighbor's house nearby at the time of the blaze because her washing machine was broken, according to the neighbor, Jennifer Purcell. Purcell said they had smelled smoke, and Purcell went outside and saw the flames, telling Brown, "Oh my God, your house is on fire!"

They both ran up the street to the house, but weren't able to get inside, Purcell said.