4 children injured after Virginia Beach fire pit spreads

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) -- Four children were injured after tossing accelerant over a fire pit while cooking hot dogs Wednesday night on Atlantic Avenue, according to the Virginia Beach Fire Department. Crews were dispatched to the 7500 block of Atlantic Avenue at 75th Street in reference to a report of a brush fire at approximately 10:05 p.m. When they arrived, they discovered a fire pit burning that extended into the yard. Four children, ages 17, 16, and 5-year-old twins, were injured and taken to a local hospital for further treatment. The incident was determined to be accidental in nature. Investigators determined when the children were cooking hot dogs over a fire pit, a small container of an accelerant was accidentally tossed onto the fire. Fire officials say the accelerant was mistaken for water. 10 On Your Side was able to speak with the mother of some of the children, and she confirmed the ages of the children impacted. According to mother Eris Harmonia and the Virginia Beach Fire Department, it all began at her home when an accelerant in a toy bucket was mistaken for water, and it added gasoline to the fire pit, which caught people on fire, burned chairs. It could have been a lot worse, however. “This is what remains of the bucket with some sand," she said. "So they thought it was water, and then these are those pieces of that blue chair that got burned.” Harmonia showed 10 On Your Side what was left of the blue bucket, which was the bottom that had melted. Harmonia said the scene was chaotic, and claimed someone not related to her started the fire. “So that was confusing too, because we all smelled gas, and nobody knew where the gas would have come from, and there was no gas can found anywhere," Harmoni said. "We are assuming that someone who wanted to help put gas in a toy bucket, and then someone else thought it was water.” The person who brought gasoline to the gathering was not related to Hamonia.   “That led to what I call a boom," she said. "Nobody really was there when the boom happened. Like nobody was staring at it. Whoever did this was not in my family.” After the boom, Virginia Beach Fire and EMS was called to scene. “We were able to figure out who was burned," she said. "We put them in the other lawn chairs, so when the fire [department] and everybody showed up, they knew who was hurt. They started right on them. Everybody else just went into action. We had already had the two hoses out, dousing everything in water.” Harmonia is proud of her own child’s response. “I’m very proud because one of the embers went to the child’s shirt," she said. "So the burn is right here, a small burn, but then my kid burned hands by smothering it. The other injured, a teenager, ran instead of stopping, dropping and rolling because they ran around the house, like in a panic.” Virginia Beach Fire offered us these tips about dry weather conditions: