CHARLY MARNE: A mother and her seven children aged two to 14 died on Monday after a faulty dryer set their house ablaze in eastern France, authorities said.

The raging fire, the deadliest such blaze involving children in France in a decade, broke out shortly after midnight in the family home in the town of Charly-sur-Marne, some 80 kilometres east of Paris in the Champagne region.

The mother and her children suffocated from black smoke that filled their home as they were trapped in the attic, local prosecutor Julien Morino-Ros told.

The origin of the fire appeared to have been a malfunctioning clothes dryer on the ground floor of the house, he said.

Neighbours called the fire department to report the blaze just before 1 am.

The woman’s husband, father to three of the children, was seriously burned and transferred to a hospital, they said.

His life was saved by a firefighter who lives nearby and who intervened before his colleagues arrived.

The children included five girls and two boys. Four of them were from the mother’s previous relationship.

The father appears to have attempted to put out the fire and told his wife and the children to seek refuge from the flames in their converted attic on the second floor.

But that plan turned out to be a trap, the prosecutor said.

Published in Dawn, February 7th, 2023