3 women killed in Chester Co. fire identified; cause accidental
Relative: I don't know why they didn't jump.
WEST CALN TWP., Pa. (WPVI) -- Authorities have identified the three women killed in Monday's fire on Hill Road in West Caln Township, Chester County.
Sally Diane Rimel, 52; Roland L. Rimel, 58; and Angel Maria Rimel, 37, all perished in the blaze.
Firefighters found their bodies on a rear deck of the home.
Sally and Rolanda were sisters. Angel Maria was Sally's daughter.
The fire erupted at 12:07 p.m. at an expanded mobile home in the 300 block of Hill Road.
A relative told neighbors that seven family members had gathered at the home after the woman's grandmother passed away Sunday night.
A neighbor told Action News the relative told her the fire broke out on the porch.
"She said that her two aunts and her cousin were killed in the fire because they couldn't get out through the hole the uncle and the children got out in the back of the house. She said that the uncle tried to rip open an opening for them, but they refused to jump," the neighbor said.
Two men and two children made it out safely.
The Chester County fire marshal has ruled the cause of the blaze accidental.
He says carelessly discarded smoking materials touched off a fire in some plastic trash containers, and that dry, windy conditions Monday afternoon caused the fire to spread quickly to the home.
"The weather conditions did play a role; we did have a small woods fire that extended from the actual house fire," Wagontown Volunteer Fire Company Chief Todd Ziegler said Monday.
"The home was well gone before the fire company got here," neighbor Art Lapori said.
A neighbor says the woman who survived seemed shocked that three of her relatives did not make it out.
"At one point she did break down and said, 'I don't know why they didn't jump,'" the neighbor said.
The fire was investigated by the Chester County fire marshal and the Pennsylvania State Police.
