Four people are dead, including one child, after a fire Thursday afternoon at a home in upper Northwest Washington. Investigators are looking into the possibility of foul play, two city officials said.
It was unclear how the people died. The city officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is just beginning.
Police Chief Cathy Lanier said the fire is “suspicious in nature.”
The incident occurred in a two-story house in the 3200 block of Woodland Drive NW, just north of the U.S. Naval Observatory. The fire was put out about 2:30 p.m.
Debra Ann Masser, of Sarasota, Fla., said her brother Savvas Savopoulos and his wife, Amy, live in the home with their children. Masser said family members have been reaching out to authorities to try to figure out whose bodies were found in the house, but so far they have not gotten any answers.
“We don’t know what is going on,” Masser said.
Masser declined to discuss the fire or family further until she knows more about what happened.
Jacqueline Rizik and Landon Butler, both neighbors, said they saw firefighters carry a woman from the house on a stretcher.
Rizik said it appeared that firefighters tried to perform CPR before the woman was whisked away to the hospital. Both Rizik and Butler said they had heard from other neighbors that a second person was also removed from the house and taken to the hospital.
Rizik was concerned for the Savopoulos family, whom she said she has known for years. She said that the family, with two teenage daughters and a younger son, is very popular. They frequently entertain neighbors and friends at their home, she said.
“They are wonderful people,” Rizik said. “Their kids are well brought up.”
The neighbors said that the damage to the house appeared extensive.
“They had to break down the front door and windows to get inside,” Rizik said. “Fire and smoke were pouring out of the windows.”
“Smoke was pouring out of the upper story of the home,” Butler said. “The firefighters were on their ladders to get at it.”
