No working smoke detectors in rental home where Lansing child died

LANSING, Mich. (WILX) - The child who died in a fatal house fire on Monday morning has been identified as Damian Shessia, a 23-month-old boy.

Update: Lansing rental house wasn’t inspected prior to deadly fire

The fire was at a house on Cavanaugh Street, and was determined to have started in the back bedroom where firefighters located Damian.

Neighbors like Audrey Gross said they didn’t know the family, who was renting the home, that well. Even so, it didn’t make them any less concerned.

“I don’t know what happened,” said Gross. “But there was a woman and they told her something and she started crying hysterically and the kids started crying.”

Gross lives about two houses down from where the fire started. She said she was at home with her 4-year-old daughter when she heard the sirens, came outside and saw the smoke.

Background: Neighborhood in shock following Lansing house fire that killed toddler

“The little kids asked the paramedics if they could talk to my daughter and I said ‘Absolutely,’” Gross recalled.

Her daughter spoke with and comforted the neighbor children who had made it out of the house fire. They had just learned their youngest sibling, Damian, didn’t survive.

Investigators said there were no functioning smoke detectors in the rented house at the time of the fire.

The cause of the fire is under investigation by the Lansing Fire Department Fire Marshal Division and the Lansing Police Department.

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