MANKATO — It was just after 2 a.m. Monday when Drew Campbell was shaken from his sleep by the sounds of sirens.
Looking out the window of his Locke Street home, he saw fire trucks, ambulances and police squad cars stopped at a home on Bradley Street. Campbell threw on a bathrobe and walked toward the scene.
“You can see it from Locke Street,” Campbell said. “It was big. It lit up the whole woods back there.”
He heard the crackling of the fire, watched firefighters frantically trying to knock the flames down. And on the sidewalk in front of the Lincoln Park neighborhood home, he saw some of the house’s residents. But not all.
“I saw them and I thought, ‘There’s no way,’” he said, thinking of the fate of those trapped inside. “It’d be a miracle if they survived.”
By the time firefighters squelched the blaze, it was too late. Two children in the house died in the fire, and their mother was airlifted to Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis.
Another adult and child escaped the fire without injury. Authorities have not released the identities of the victims. But social media posts and a GoFundMe site identify the injured mother as Deanna Lynn Lenzen and the deceased children as Aiden and Annika.
On the GoFundMe site, a friend of Lenzen’s who is organizing the fundraiser, said Lenzen “is currently in an oxygen chamber to help her lungs with the smoke inhalation.”
When Mankato firefighters responded to 233½ Bradley St. at about 2 a.m., flames were visible from the upstairs apartment where the family — the two adults, three children and several cats and ferrets — lived.
“This is a heartbreaking tragedy, especially at the start of the new school year,” stated Jeremy Clifton, director of the Mankato Department of Public Safety, in a city news release. “We are working to determine the cause and will support those affected in any way we can.”
Occupants of the lower apartment in the house were able to get out safely.
Jaci Bingham said she woke up around 2:10 a.m. after hearing noise from the street and her dogs growling. She also saw bright light coming from the front of her house that made her wonder who was in her driveway. She looked out her window — she lives just around the corner from where the fire happened — and saw an army of fire trucks and police cars.
“Then I came out front and stood here and watched for a little bit,” she said. “But I didn’t realize that, at the time that I was out here watching what was going on, that there were still people in the house.”
While the exact cause of the fire has not been determined, the city release said, early indications suggest it was not intentional. The state fire marshal is assisting with the ongoing investigation.