Mom, three kids lose everything in fire

CHESAPEAKE, Va. (WAVY) - The aging mobile home on S. Military Highway may not have seemed like much, but it was all single-mother Dominique Whitfield, who gave birth just five weeks ago, and her children had.

Wednesday morning, Whitfield's 6-year-old twins woke her up saying, "Momma, there's a fire!"

Dominique said she jumped out of bed, grabbed the boy and girl and then ran to scoop up her newborn and rushed out of the house.

"At that moment you just think, 'Oh my God,'" she said.

"I had my baby to my chest because the smoke was so dark I didn't want it to get in him," said Dominique. She told WAVY.com that her 6-year-old son was playing with a lighter and accidentally burned the house down.

"There's nothing in here," said Dominique. "It's all just ashes." The family made it out of the burning house with just the clothes on their backs. "My baby only had his sleeper and a diaper on. My son had on pants and no shirt, no shoes. My daughter had no shoes."

The Red Cross is putting Whitfield up in a hotel for three days, but after that she doesn't know where they will go. "I just pray I can find somewhere else to go after that," she said in tears.

Dominique has struggled to put a roof over her childrens' heads. She scraped together $1,800 to buy the trailer--the first thing she has ever owned.

Her cousin, Sharonda Hardy, said, "She didn't care how extravagant it was, she just wanted a safe place for her kids, and now it's gone."

Whitfield has been taking classes at Tidewater Community College. She even lost her school books in the fire.

Whitfield set up a fund through the Bank of Hampton Roads called "The Whitfield Family Fund." Anybody can visit a branch to donate.