SOUTH FULTON, Ga. — Multiple people were hurt Wednesday and several others were still missing hours later for after a two-story-house fire in the City of South Fulton.
Crews with South Fulton Fire and Rescue said they arrived at the home on Oswego Trail just before 5 a.m. and found it fully engulfed in flames.
Lt. Eric Jackson of City of South Fulton Fire said that there were five people taken to Grady Hospital by ambulance in stable condition, while two others went to the hospital in a private car, while another person walked out of the house. Lt. Jackson stated that two of the four people that were previously unaccounted for, including one man and one woman are dead.
Firefighters are still sifting through the unstable structure in order to find the other two people who are presumed dead, which Lt. Jackson stated is a female and a child. He stated they put the search for the two unaccounted for on pause until daybreak Thursday due to safety reasons.
11Alive's Cody Alcorn is on the scene and is reporting that one body was just recently pulled from the home. The family is still at the home as they watch the recovery effort.
Lt. Jackson described that the floors are burned out, staircases are gone and the back side of the house is almost completely erased. The fire department previously said that the roof of the building started to cave in.
There were 12 people in the house at the time of the fire, Lt. Jackson said. He recalled it being the deadliest fire in recent history in the City of South Fulton.
Officials later said seven people in all had survived the fire, with four still missing - including a child.
Recovery efforts are still underway due to the significant damage at the house. Heavy machinery has been brought in to aid the effort.
Jackson said the conditions of how the fire damaged the house are making it difficult to fully account for all the missing.
"Looking at it from the back side, (the house) is all sunken in, it's all fallen in," he said. "So, really hampering our efforts for our firefighters to really get in there and start to determine exactly where its cause and origin (were), where might this fire have occurred."
He added they couldn't fully account for all the people who might have been in the house "cause we can't even enter the house."
The Georgia state Fire Marshal's Office is also on scene to help with the investigation.
This is a developing story. Check back often for new information.
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