A mom and three kids who were killed in a devastating fire on Friday have been named after their bodies were initially too burned to identify.
The farmhouse fire burned just after midnight on Friday in Mercer County, Pennsylvania, leaving five people dead and officials sifting through the rubble days later.
Elizabeth Seltzer, 33, and her three children Paisley, 6, Ainsley, 3, and Jordan, 1, have all been identified by Mercer County Coroner John Libonati.
However, the fifth victim has not been positively identified.
Libonati is requiring out-of-state medical records to identify the adult male victim.
Four of the victims – the two adults and two of the children – were initially pulled from the rubble.
But it wasn’t until Tuesday that the third child was found by officials.
A cause of death has not yet been released for any of the five victims.
Libonati said the fire and deaths have hit the neighborhood hard.
“It affects the whole community and people want to help, and I get it,” Libonati said.
“The way that they can help is really help those first responders that are putting forth their life and safety and mental health to perform those duties.”
The blaze was not believed to be suspicious, but officials continue to investigate.
“It’s been a very long, hard day,” Corporal Timothy Repp with the Pennsylvania State Police said Friday.
“As you can imagine, any fire with victims involved with a human loss is hard to see, hard to deal with.”
Repp also said officials are “working until we can confirm everything that we believe we can confirm.”
“This is a small community, so people were known. You know, people know these people,” he told local news.
“These aren’t just names. It affects all of us deeply. I mean, these are people in the community.
“So we all have to try to focus on the task at hand, do the best we can for the people and the families involved.”
A GoFundMe has been organized to help the family pay for the funerals of Seltzer and her three children.
“Liz Seltzer was an amazing human being who loved with her whole heart, and thought nothing of dropping everything she was doing to help her family when they needed her, even when they didn’t know they needed her,” the fundraiser’s description reads.
More than $36,000 has been raised to put towards funeral costs and a celebration of life.
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