Tuesday August 11 marks on year since that unforgettable home daycare fire in Erie that claimed five little lives.

What happened that night at 1248 West 11th Street was a first in Erie firefighting history. Not even the longest serving Erie firefighters could remember a time when they lost multiple children in a blaze.

The home daycare was operated by Elaine Harris, she was injured escaping the fire, but survived.  Two teenage children staying at the home, managed to jump to safety from a second floor roof.

Investigators determined that the fire started in an extension cord under a first floor couch.  The flames flashed up the front of the house to the second floor, trapping five children ages 9 months to 8-years-old who were sleeping at the 24-hour daycare facility.

Although firefighters quickly found the little ones and carried them out of the burning home, all had suffered too much smoke inhalation to survive. "I know that we did our best and that there’s nothing more that we could have done," Deputy Chief Len Trott said.  "I spent a lot of time reliving it, thinking what could we have done...there might be people out there who think they know better...but, we went as hard and fast at that and we put that fire out fast and found those kids in a short amount of time."  Trott said the firefighters never gave up hope, but where the children were found, "they had inhaled too much smoke and carbon monoxide and there was no oxygen for them to breathe."

The entire region wrapped their arms around the families who suffered loss, with prayers, vigils, flowers and stuffed animals.

As we reported last week, daycare home inspection regulations were expanded locally by city of Erie ordinance. Teams with a city building inspector and fire inspector are going through every childcare facility checking for safety violations that must be corrected in order to by licensed by the state.  They had inspected over 60 such facilities by last week with 20 or 30 more to go.

Meantime, Pennsylvania lawmakers passed a measure introduced by Senator Dan Laughlin that makes Human Services responsible to check for working smoke detectors in daycare homes as they evaluate facilities during their routine inspections as well.

The changes give firefighters and the families of those children some comfort, but this anniversary will be a sad time.

Pastor Lamont Higginbottom who coordinated the funerals for the children said, "I can’t even begin to describe the pain of those families, never lost a child—but I can tell you that the cry of a mother that has a lost a child is the worst sound that any pastor, any human can hear." He added, "Let's find a way to show this family, these families, that we still support them, we still pray for them and we are certainly thinking of them."

The Overton family plans a graveside butterfly release on Tuesday.