Mother tried to save her kids

What happened in the smoke-filled home on W. 22nd Street early Monday morning isn’t known yet.

But it appears Joyce Bunn was attempting to do what any parent would - get her two young daughters to safety.

"It appears maybe they made some attempt to get out," said Brad Sloup, an investigator with the Nebraska Fire Marshal’s Office.

The bodies of Bunn, 41, and her daughters, Kylie, 3, and Olivia, 2, were found in a second-floor bedroom of the home at 435 W. 22nd St.

Nancy Dohmen, 65, Bunn’s mother and the children’s grandmother, was injured in the fire. She was listed in good condition this morning at Fremont Area Medical Center where she is being treated for smoke inhalation.

Dealing with a fatal fire is difficult enough, fire officials said. But the death of children really has an impact.

"Children always affect you differently," said Capt. Jamie Meyer of the Fremont Fire Department. "Your adrenaline goes up. You try to get in and when you can’t, it’s just tough. Especially when you’ve got little kids."

Sloup said the conditions inside the home is making the investigation difficult.

He said all of the rooms and hallways were filled with clothing and other items, allowing a small path to walk. A ceiling also had collapsed.

"They were faced with a challenge from the get go and they worked through it," Sloup said of the firefighters.

As of the end of the day Monday, he hadn’t come up with a preliminary cause for the fire and had made it through just one room of the house.

Meyer said firefighters initially tried to get into the house, but had to retreat and fight a defensive battle.

"The guys couldn’t get in more than 10 feet," he said. "We had a report of people trapped, but we couldn’t make access. There was just too much stuff in the house, too much fire."

Both off-duty shifts of the Fremont Fire Department were called in to help, as well as volunteers from the Fremont Rural Fire Department.

Firefighters initially were called to the home at 435 W. 22nd St. at about 3:25 a.m. and found flames coming from the first floor. The fire was out by mid morning.

Fremont Fire Chief Gary German said the department has two options for crisis management for firefighters involved in the fatal fire who show the effects.

He said so far, no firefighters have asked for help, but it is available either in the form of an employee assistance program or Critical Incident Stress Management.

In Critical Incident Stress Management, fellow firefighters who have been through similar situations defuse and debrief firefighters who are having problems coping. Depending on the severity, mental health professionals also can be part of the process.

"We do watch for and differences and monitor the personnel. We will make personnel available," German said. "A couple of little girls like this ... it is difficult."

He said he believes Monday’s fire was the first multiple fatalities in a house fire in Fremont since the 1940s.