
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, May 6, 1993                   TAG: 9305060164
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

LIGHTED BURNER BLAMED IN FIRE THAT KILLED 2 TOTS

The mother of two children killed in a mobile-home fire in Franklin County last week apparently did not turn off one of the burners of the stove before she left the house, Deputy Fire Marshal Ben Cook said Wednesday.

Shenandoah Hanks, 17, said the night of the fire that she turned the stove off, but may have left a potholder on it, before leaving to take some spaghetti to her mother who lived a few hundred feet away.

Though all of the stove's plastic knobs were melted off, Cook said the metal control for the left rear burner was left in the "on" position.

"What we concluded was, most probably it came from the stove," Cook said of the fire's origin.

"What happened to start the fire we don't know," he said, "probably never will know."

Keywords:
FATALITY

by CNB