Amish Mother & 6 Children Killed In Home Explosion And Fire
A devastating explosion and fire has taken the lives of seven people in a Clinton County, Pennsylvania Amish community – six of them young children.
This is the third explosion at an Amish home or school we’ve covered here in the past month. And if bad news comes in threes, this is by far the worst of the bunch. Like the others, this incident also involves heating fuel – in this case a suspected propane leak in the home.
The explosion happened early Sunday morning – around 8:30 AM. Members of the Amish community who came to the scene were in their church clothing, as this was right around the time Amish services begin. From WJAC:
Emergency crews were dispatched around 8:30 a.m. to a home along the 700 block of Long Run Road in Lamar Township after reports of an explosion and structure fire with possible entrapment.
When firefighters arrived, state police say the home was already fully engulfed in flames, preventing any attempt to search for survivors.
Authorities say all seven occupants inside the residence were trapped and died as a result of the explosion and fire.
A neighbor named Christina Duck reported hearing a boom prior to the home being engulfed in flames. She speaks with WNEP in the video below, saying that:
“I heard a boom, and I could feel it. And I got up and looked at the window, and I could see the flames through the windows. And I come running outside, and within a minute the whole house was completely engulfed.”
It sounds like a terrible scene, and images of the fire confirms that impression. This poor family had no chance. Despite a fast response by fire crews, the home was quickly consumed.
“By the time they got there, there was no saving that house, ” Duck said. “It went up so fast.”
The report at Penn Live lists the victims, with the six children ranging in age from 2 to 11, citing an online obituary for the family:
An obituary identifies the victims as members of the Old Order Amish Church: 34-year-old Sarah B. Stolzfus and children Andrew, 11; Benji, 10; Susie, 8; Barbie, 6; Michael, 5; and James 2.
Husband and father of the family David F. Stoltzfus was not at home at the time.
Clinton County is home to two Amish settlements – one shared with neighboring Centre County, and a second in the area of Loganton and Sugar Valley. This incident happened in the Lamar Township area, which would place it in the second community, a settlement of over 1,400 Amish people that was founded in the early 1970s.
That community will be coming together to offer support, and already have been. Just a terrible tragedy and unimaginable loss for the father and husband.
And I suppose it is just a tragic coincidence, but as mentioned we have been seeing these reports of dangerous explosions and fires at Amish properties lately – the Pennsylvania school explosion in late March, and the Ohio barn and workshop explosion and fire last week (in which an Amish mother and child had a “close call”).
Stories like this one get around, and hopefully will encourage families to do what they can to prevent similar situations from occurring.
Prayers for this family and community. The funeral will be held Wednesday. Further information and how to send flowers is given at this obituary page.
Update
In the new report below by WJAC, we hear from neighbors of the family, and the reporter shares an account told to him of how one of the little boys that lived at the Stoltzfus home once shoveled a neighbor’s driveway clear of snow as a surprise.
We also learn that the Howard Fire Company has already organized a buggy ride fundraiser for David Stoltzfus. Visitation is currently ongoing until the funeral, scheduled for Wednesday at 10 AM.
PA Home Explosion and Fire
OMG!! Not again!! What the heck?! Do these folks simply neglect to check their fuel line connections?? Just the mother alone having died would’ve been enough to break my heart, but SIX children too?? I am completely gutted by this latest incident. If word of such events do in fact travel fast, we can only hope that other Amish who use gas/fuel oil to heat homes, etc. will be sure to check all connections. If they’d had a home monitoring system in place-that plugs into an electrical outlet- perhaps a warning siren could’ve alerted them to possible danger?? I know that many Amish eschew such devices, believing that God is in charge of their lives, but you’ll have to forgive me because I simply don’t understand what could possibly be wrong with a device that can save lives. Another completely avoidable tragedy . . . (crying my eyes out)
It's sad, but not so simple
Most of the other times I’ve heard of whole families being killed, it’s been people who live a usual western life and car accidents. And people die in fires caused by electric wiring. There are risks to any lifestyle. You can check everything correctly and still have things go wrong: there’s no way of telling this was avoidable from the information actually given here.
I don’t think anyone can make these choices for anyone else when it comes to their own home. I have no smoke or CO alarms for disability reasons, because I have noise sensitivity problems and having an alarm that would be liable to cause seizures is more dangerous than not having an alarm (I don’t have an adapted alarm because stupid regulations won’t allow a low-volume alarm that would be safe seizure-wise and still better than nothing). It’s not simple.
Propane is a bit surprising as a cause, because it’s usually made to smell so you can tell readily even if there’s quite a small leak. There shouldn’t usually be a need for an alarm. Having said, I would imagine most Amish would have no problem with a battery alarm in and of itself (no idea about the Old Order specifically), but as far as I know, they don’t use mains powered alarms because they don’t want to use mains power for other reasons.
The refusal to take safety precautions as such is a distortion (I believe) that crops up in all Christian traditions from time to time, but it’s not really supported by Scripture (put a rail around the roof of your house; do not put God to the test). Refusal to take a safety precaution because there is some other reason not to take it is not the same thing, however. (To use an extreme example: if you’re sitting on the roof of your house in a flood, and a rescue helicopter comes along and offers to pick you up, that’s HOW God is choosing to save you. If you’re sitting on the roof of your house ditto, and the only hope you have of rescue is to murder your neighbour so you can steal their boat, then you accept your time has come).
I don’t think they are right about electricity and I might well protest their priority if I was arguing about it theologically, but in practical and moral terms, one person simply can’t make these decisions for another. Freedom means freedom to make actual choices about our lives that other people disagree with and wouldn’t make for themselves, and to accept the natural consequences of those decisions. (And – as we should have learned from the stolen generations – children have the right to their family life and parents’ culture unless natural law crimes are being committed against them, at which point protecting them from that at the possible cost of the other is the lesser of the evils).
Many prayers and condolences for the father and husband in the case – it is simply unimaginable.