A firefighter battling a wildfire in Washington state near the Canadian border lost his wife and three children in an early-morning blaze that destroyed their new home.
The family's single-wide trailer was almost completely consumed when firefighters and sheriff's deputies responded to the Green Acres Mobile Home Park in Benton City, Washington, just before 1 a.m. on August 27.
"There was really nothing we could do," Ron Duncan, chief of Benton County Fire Protection District 2, told CNN.
The radiant heat from the fire was so intense that a nearby trailer also caught fire, but deputies were able to rescue the residents of that home, Duncan said.
Firefighters put out the fire and found the family members' bodies while searching the trailer.
Marcaria Garcia-Martinez, 32, her daughters Luz Garcia-Martinez, 17, and Michelle Garcia-Martinez, 6, and son Luis Garcia-Martinez, 15, died from asphyxia due to smoke inhalation, Benton County Coroner William Leach told CNN in an email.