Did DCFS do enough to help mother before fire tragedy?

• Reprints

Updated: February 27, 2012 9:57AM

I will never forget the grief reflected in the woman’s eyes when she told me two of her grandchildren were lost in a fire.

We had attended the same high school, and I hadn’t seen her in 20 years.

On the day of the fatal fire, her daughter had fallen asleep on the couch downstairs. The children were upstairs in their beds, and their mother was unable to reach them.

Initially, it was reported that the mother had not been home at the time of the blaze, which turned out to be untrue.

But the allegation heaped more despair on a mother who was already disconsolate.

So I am sensitive to the plight of Alicia Myles, the mother of Destiny Myles, 3, and Jeremiah Myles, 18 months, in a fire on the far South Side.

But the facts that have emerged thus far about this family raise questions about the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services’ involvement with this family.

Fire investigators claim that Myles’ 6-year-old son, Curnet, told them that Destiny turned on the stove burner around 3 a.m. They wanted to warm up pizza. The flame set fire to a pizza box on the range.

The alarm of a smoke detector woke up the mother, and she tried to grab the children.

“I tried to grab my daughter, but she was mad at me,” Myles told the Chicago Sun-Times. She managed to escape the burning apartment with the 6-year-old but was unable to go back inside to rescue her two other children.

The 6-year-old is now in the care of relatives while the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services completes its investigation into neglect allegations made against this mother.

Kendall Marlowe, a spokesman for DCFS, stressed there is no indication that Myles is responsible in any way for the fire.

“Any time there is a house fire or any other catastrophe in which a child is harmed, it is not uncommon for us to receive a call to the hotline alleging neglect,” according to Marlowe.”

But these children were growing up in a troubled household. Myles, who is eight months pregnant, was trying to raise three children, age 6 and younger, by herself.

That’s nearly an impossible task even with a helpmate.

There were a lot of warning signs that the children were at risk. For instance, DCFS had to provide “supportive services” to the family between 2006 and 2007 and again in 2008 through 2009. Even so, the agency did not remove the children from the home. DCFS also substantiated two different investigations against Myles’ boyfriends in 2009 and 2011. Additionally, there is a pending investigation of abuse against the mother that was opened last November.

Despite the number of abuse and neglect allegations that were sustained, DCFS did not remove the children from Myles’ care.

On Wednesday, Marlowe defended the agency’s actions in this case.

“This family has faced profound challenges, but there is nothing in their history that would have predicted a fatal house fire,” Marlowe told me.

There is no way to predict if any of us will have to endure such a tragedy.

But something is obviously amiss in a home where a 6-year-old thinks it is OK to get out of bed and go into the kitchen at 3 a.m to make a snack.

And there is improper parenting going on when a 3-year-old turns on the stove to heat up a pizza. That is a mother’s job.

Clearly, Myles was not up to the task.

At eight months pregnant, I’m sure this mother can sleep like a rock. But that is a burden of single-parenting. Without help, it is almost impossible to get a moment’s rest.

Neighbors claimed Myles was doing the best she could raising her children. But in this case, this mother’s best was not good enough.

Myles will have to live with this terrible loss. It won’t be easy.

When my former classmate’s grandchildren perished in a fire, it nearly destroyed her daughter.

But the family took comfort in knowing that the mother had always tried to keep her children safe.

That’s all any of us can do.