DATE: Friday, February 28, 1997             TAG: 9702280562

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY NANCY LEWIS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   90 lines

SURVIVORS OF FAMILY WHO DIED IN FIRE COPE WITH TRAGEDY, FINANCES

Each day, when his two big brothers headed off to school, 3-year-old Travis Moon gave them hugs and kisses.

Daniel, 7, was top reader in his second-grade class at Cleveland Elementary School outside Clayton, N.C. Kelly, 5, liked kindergarten so much that he'd get mad when school was canceled, said their mother in a recent letter to her mother-in-law, Carol Garrett of Norfolk.

A week ago today, the three boys and their parents, Scott and Christine Moon, were buried in four gold-trimmed, white caskets in Raleigh. Little Travis' body was placed in his mother's arms.

The family perished in the early morning hours of Feb. 17 in what Dunn, N.C., Fire Chief Austin Tew said was the worst fire disaster in the history of the town and Harnett County.

Scott Moon was 32, Christine Moon, 27. They both grew up in Norfolk.

Scott Moon attended Lake Taylor and Norview high schools and worked at the Ship's Cabin Restaurant as a prep cook before the family moved to North Carolina about a year ago.

He was an assistant manager for Express Lube in Apex, N.C., and was to have been promoted to manager this month.

Christine Moon, the daughter of James and Shirley Augustine, now of Raleigh, attended Norview High School.

Autopsy reports list carbon monoxide poisoning as the cause of death, which indicates all died in their sleep, Tew said.

There was no smoke alarm in the house, he said, although North Carolina law requires landlords to supply detectors. There are ``no teeth in the law,'' Tew said.

A bill introduced in the state legislature the same day the Moon family died calls for civil and criminal penalties for non-compliance with the law, Tew said. It would make violation a Class 3 misdemeanor and would mandate penalties of at least $500.

Tew said Thursday the cause of the house fire most likely never would be determined, though heating and electrical sources had been eliminated.

The house, described in the Raleigh News and Observer as a ``crumbling rental house on a dead-end lane,'' was meant to be a temporary stopover for the family, Garrett said.

They had moved in just three days earlier, on Valentine's Day.

Scott Moon worked long hours in an effort to make ends meet, his mother said. According to Christine's letter, he left home at 7 a.m. each weekday and didn't return until 11 p.m.

His wife stayed home to care for the children because day-care was too expensive, Garrett said.

Tew gave a first-hand account of the fire:

``When I got there, it was fully involved. There was no way anybody could possibly have been alive in there. It had to have been burning at least an hour.''

Since the fire, all of the major stores in Dunn have sold out of smoke detectors, Tew said.

``It's nothing but a shame something of this magnitude has to happen before people realize, `Hey, this could be me.' ''

Scott Moon's mother and stepfather, Donald Garrett, live in the Ocean View section of Norfolk. He is a shipyard worker who has been laid off for six months, and Carol Garrett has been recuperating from surgery. They had to borrow money to go to the funeral.

Moon's father, William Moon, lives in Kanapolis, N.C. Scott Moon had four siblings, and Christine Moon, three.

Through her tears, Carol Garrett remembered this week that the last thing Scott would always say was, ``I love you, Mom.''

In a telephone interview Thursday, Shirley Augustine recalled the last conversation she'd had with her daughter - the day before the tragedy.

``She said, `I love you, Mom.' ''

In her letter to Garrett, Christine Moon included a post script:

``Hi. We love you, Maw-Maw and Paw-Paw.''

Then she wrote the boys' names. MEMO: Memorial donations may be sent to The Moon Family Trust Fund, c/o

Mitchell Funeral Home, 7209 Glenwood Ave., Raleigh, N.C. 27612. ILLUSTRATION: [Photo]

GARY C. KNAPP

Carol Garrett of Norfolk holds a photo of her son, Scott Allen Moon,

his wife Christine, and Kelly and Daniel, their first two boys.

Their third, Travis, hadn't been born. The entire Moon family died

Feb. 17 in a house fire in North Carolina.

[Photo]\

Christine and Scott Moon in a family photo. The Moons and their

three children were buried last Friday after a fatal house fire.

Christine attended Norview High School; Scott, Lake Taylor and

Norview. KEYWORDS: FIRE FATALITY

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