At its peak, the fire consumed the entire house on Deaver Road in Elkton, and now little remains in the burned out shell it left behind.
Kimberly Anders met with investigators to describe what she saw in the critical minutes before fire trucks arrived on the scene.
"I'd just left my cousin's house, I drove by and I road past and the back of the house was fully enflamed,” Anders said. “So I stopped, called 911 and ran up to the house to see if I could hear anyone... that kind of thing... and I couldn't."
It took firefighters more than three hours to douse the flames, and state fire marshals had to bring in heavy equipment to help search for two people that were unaccounted for.
"Once they cleared the scene, we were able to locate two of the deceased victims within the house several hours after the fire had been extinguished," said Sr. Deputy State Fire Marshal Howard F. Ewing, "Yesterday was the recovery process. Today's going to be the actual origin/cause investigation where we're going to get in and start digging around and sifting and looking for any evidentiary value items."
The work is painstaking since that which remains of the house collapsed into a heap of ash and char in the basement and at this point, investigators have not found any evidence the home was equipped with smoke alarms.
Meanwhile, the lone Good Samaritan who stopped and tried in vain to help the victims is now haunted by the fact she was too late to save their lives.
"Just the thought that I wasn't able to get to them,” said Anders, “I just keep hearing them say, 'Help me! Help me!' even though they weren't. You know... in my mind, I wish I could have done more honestly."
Investigators are still awaiting word from the State Medical Examiner's Office in Baltimore on the victims' identities and their cause and manner of death.
