Sugar Land mom shares grief, memories after fire during freeze kills her 3 kids and mother

After playing cards and spending time together by the fireplace Monday, the tired family headed to sleep, brushing their teeth and tucking into beds as the Houston region descended into one of its coldest nights. The family’s home in Sugar Land, like millions of others across the Lone Star state by then, had no power. Edison, 8, went to the room of his 11-year-old sister, Olivia, which had bunk beds. The children’s grandmother, Loan Le, planned to sleep with the youngest, 5-year-old Colette. And the children’s mother, 41-year-old Jackie Nguyen, headed to her room. Those are the final moments Nguyen recalls about the night.

At about 2 a.m., Sugar Land firefighters responding to a fire reported by a neighbor who found the family’s home engulfed in flames, said Doug Adolph, a city and department spokesman. The three children and Le died. Nguyen and a friend were taken to a hospital for treatment of injuries that included smoke inhalation and burns. “I just know that I woke up in the hospital,” Nguyen said Sunday. Nearly a week after the fire, Adolph said there were no updates on the investigation into the cause of the fire. The family had been trying to keep warm with a fireplace, according to posts on their social media accounts, Adolph said. “Obviously they were trying to stay warm,” Adolph said at the time. “We can’t say that’s what the cause was, we just think we know they were using a fireplace.” In the days since the deadly blaze, Nguyen said she misses everything about her kids. The other day, she missed driving them to school. And at 4 p.m., she missed seeing them arrive home. “Most of all, I think, what I will miss is just seeing them grow into these amazing human beings that I knew that they would be,” she said. A few years ago, when Nguyen went into labor with Colette on the day that marked Olivia’s birthday, excitement filled the eldest child. “Oh my gosh,” Nguyen recalled her first born saying. “I’m going to have a twin sister.”