6 children, 2 adults killed in West Virginia house fire

Six children and two adults were killed in a fire that erupted Saturday morning in a two-story home in West Virginia without smoke detectors.

A woman and a baby were also hurt in the blaze, which was reported around 3:30 a.m., The Associated Press reported.

Bob Sharp, assistant chief for the Charleston Fire Department, told MSNBC the injured child was on life support.

Charleston Mayor Danny Jones told the AP he believed it was the city's deadliest fire in at least six decades. Jones said only one smoke detector was found in a cabinet, and it was not working.

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It was not immediately clear how the fire started.

Police told Charleston TV station WSAZ that it appears two families were living in the home, and that the victims were all related.

A woman who was inside the home at the time managed to escape and call for help, according to Charleston TV station WCHS.

Jones told the AP he was devastated by the news when he got the call sometime after the fire was reported.

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"I was with my children and I just grabbed them and hugged them, because I have a 5-year-old and a 4-year-old," he told the AP. "I walked up there and caught a glimpse of some fatalities and it's something that's hard to grasp. The fact that there are (six) dead children, it's unimaginable."