Demolition complete at site of deadly Albany house fire

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) — The house that caught fire Monday on Twiller Street in Albany was officially demolished on Wednesday morning. The fire tragically took the lives of five people, including three children and two adults.

Albany Fire Chief Joseph Gregory said although this means they’ve completed the on-scene portion of the investigation, there is still much more to do.

“Now we’ll take back any of the information we’ve gathered from there and work with our partnering agencies, to move forward with the investigation,” said Gregory.

This devastating fire broke out around 10:42 Monday morning on the first floor of the home.

“The house was actually deemed for demolition the morning of the fire, after it was assessed by me and the engineer,” said Rick LaJoy.

LaJoy is the director of Buildings and Regulatory Compliance in Albany. He said unfortunately, leaving this house up would not have been safe for the community.

“Tt was a devastating fire so just the structural integrity left in such a position that there was really, it was a public safety issue,” said LaJoy.

Neighbors, family and friends gathered in front of the home for one last time Tuesday night They honored the five people who lost their lives with a candlelight vigil. Police released the names of the two adult victims Wednesday morning — they are 52-year-old Erick DeCamp and 47-year-old Eric Peterson.

The other victims were all children, including a six-year-old girl, four-year-old boy and three-year-old girl. Two of them attended KIPP Tech Valley Primary School.

“We’re never going to understand why five people including three small children are deceased,” said Brendan Cox, Albany police chief. “But at the end of the day, our job is to at least know as much factual evidence and information as possible.”

Chief Brendan Cox and Chief Gregory said they are doing everything they can to find out what caused this fire.

“This is going to be a lengthy process as all fire investigations are, it’s something that we want to make sure that we cover all the bases and make sure that all the ‘i’s’ are dotted and the ‘t’s’ are crossed,” said Chief Gregory.

“Especially when there are five deaths, we owe it to the family, we owe it to ourselves, we owe it to the community to know what the cause and origin are,” said Cox.

Additionally, LaJoy shared that the two neighboring houses are expected to be okay. The one on the right is still deemed uninhabitable, but they are working on its recovery. As for the now-demolished home at 23 Twiller St., LaJoy said he has been in contact with the owner.

“It’s still privately owned, the owner that was deceased also has another owner who I was just speaking to. So they’re actually asking about rebuilding on the property and the potential of doing so,” said LaJoy. “So if they want to rebuild, we’ll help in anyway we can to help them move forward with that.”

Following the demolition, crews will be back to finish cleaning up the property, including placing top soil down. This is a developing story, stick with NEWS10 ABC for updates.