'As tragic as it gets': Town reeling after fatal Boxholm fire

BOXHOLM, Ia. — On weekends, Amber Sorenson and her three children would cuddle in the family's master bedroom for slumber parties.

The children watched movies and snacked with Mom while Dad, John Sorenson, worked overnights guarding inmates 30 minutes away at the Fort Dodge Correctional Facility.

Sometimes the girls, Riley, 9, and Autumn, 6, tried to paint their younger brother's nails. Four-year-old Brayden always protested.

"He'd giggle and they'd say, 'We're going to paint your nails,'" Chris Maguire, a family friend who's become like an "adopted daughter," said on Monday. "And he'd say, 'No, Sissy!' He didn't want two little girls to paint his nails."

Volunteer firefighters found the bodies of Amber Sorenson, 27, and the three children in that bedroom shortly before flames engulfed the house early Sunday morning, Amber's mother, Jean Kraft, told The Des Moines Register. Also in the bedroom was the family dog, a mixed poodle named Bear.

Kraft and Maguire said a volunteer firefighter who helped carry their bodies out of the house told them all four appeared to have been sleeping when they died of smoke inhalation. Amber would have done anything to save her children if she could, Maguire said.

A preliminary investigation showed the fatal fire was caused by a space heater in a screened-in porch where the family kept rabbits at the rear of the home, Boxholm fire chief Dave Huffman said Monday. The state fire marshal is still investigating the fire. Just before noon, a sheriff's official was flying a drone over the remains, while yellow tape was strung around the still-smoldering home.

The fire was reported at about 12:45 a.m. Sunday, though it was around 2:15 a.m. before the bodies were recovered. The frigid cold hampered the response from the nine area fire departments that fought the fire. Water pumps on fire trucks and also hydrants froze in the cold, Huffman said on Sunday.

The deaths have resonated across this tiny Boone County town of 200 and beyond. As of 6 p.m. Monday, a GoFundMe page that was set up to help the family had received nearly $34,000 in donations. John Sorenson, who married Amber five years ago, was at work when the fire started. He's reeling from the loss, Maguire said.

"He lost everything," she said. "He came home with a uniform on and had nothing. No clothes, no shoes, no family."

The Sorenson children all attended Dayton Elementary School in nearby Dayton. Riley was a fourth-grader, Autumn a kindergartner and Brayden a half-day pre-kindergartner, said Rich Stoffers, superintendent of the Southeast Webster-Grand School District.

A crisis response team met Sunday, and counselors from other district schools and the Heartland Area Education Agency, along with local pastors, were at the elementary school Monday morning to meet with students, teachers and faculty, Stoffers said. The Sorenson family has been in the school district for many decades, and the deaths have affected the whole community, he said. John Sorenson graduated from the district's high school.

Teachers talked to their classes about the deaths and allowed students to take a break to speak with counselors.

"We wanted the students to know it's OK to be sad and to cry," Stoffers said. "We know this is not a one-day thing." Counselors will be available at the schools for several days.

"I have been in education for 39 years, and this as tragic as it gets," Stoffers said. "Losing three students is a first."

Standing outside of the home's frozen shell on Monday, Kraft spoke about the last time she saw her grandchildren while babysitting at the home on New Year's Eve so Amber and John could go out. They made pizza and watched TV. She was thankful for the support from Boxholm residents, who have turned the town's United Methodist Church, just blocks from the house, into a makeshift base to help the family.

"It's just unreal," she said. "They opened up a church we don't even belong to, bringing food and and staying by us."

Mo Kraft, Amber's sister, also was visiting the scene for the first time. She teared up talking about her sister, who worked at Louis Dreyfus Commodities in Grand Junction and would have had a birthday later this month.

"She was the most loving and caring person ever," she said. "She would do anything for anybody."