Student House Gutted By FIre (AP)

by Jordan Yerman | October 28, 2007 at 09:07 am

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UPDATE: Very little new info coming to light. Also via AP:

[q
url="http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/28/beach.fire.ap/index.html"]The
fire struck the house on Scotland Street sometime before 7 a.m. and
burned completely through the first and second floors, leaving only
part of the frame standing.

Witnesses said investigators had started removing bodies from the charred wreckage by early afternoon.

[/q]

A fire consumed a North Carolina house occupied by students early this morning. Not much out there at the moment beyond the AP coverage quoted below- we'll put the word out to see if anyone can add more detail.

Fire swept through a beach house believed occupied by college students early Sunday, killing an unknown number of people and sending several to a hospital, authorities said.

Investigators had not yet been inside the house by late morning.

"We do know there are some fatalities," Mayor Debbie Smith said. "We do not know how many."

"I understand there were some college kids in the house. Some got out. Some did not," the mayor said.

The fire was under control by late Sunday morning, the mayor said.

The four-alarm blaze had "totally engulfed" the house a little before 7 a.m., said Nick Cain, a student at the University of North Carolina who was staying at a house about 100 feet away.

"The house is standing, but it's totally gutted," Cain said. "We ran down the street to get away. The ash and the smoke were coming down on us. We were just trying to get away."

"It's a tragedy. That's all I know right now," said Mayor Debbie Smith. "I understand there were some college kids in the house. Some got out. Some did not."