Did PA authorities fail kids in fire?

BOLIVAR, N.Y. (WIVB) - Some serious questions linger in the ashes of a tragic southern tier fire that killed a Bolivar woman and two young grandchildren. Did Pennsylvania child welfare authorities fail those kids by putting them in harm's way?

All that remains of Terry Green and Tina Kemp's farmhouse in Bolivar is a charred heap of rubble. Kemp died in a Sunday morning inferno, trying to save her grandchildren, 3-year-old Eric Holmes and his 3-year-old sister Jessica. Green saved the baby, 14-month-old Charlie, but rejects the suggestion he is a hero.

"The heroes are their grandmother, my love who got me up at least, or I would not have been up, and the other hero is Charlie because he was the only reason I walked out of there," Green said.

The children were actually living in Shinglehouse, Pennsylvania. But their mom was in jail. And though their dad was just released from jail, he was ordered to stay away from them.

Lois Russell, Kemp's half-sister, and Margaret McGowan, another family member, told News 4 that Green and Kemp weren't quite ready to take the kids. The house needed work, desperately. And Kemp was going to bring her grandkids over the day of the fire so the house could get cleaned up.

Russell said, "And I waited for her phone call Sunday morning to say, 'Listen, I am on my way with the kids.' Instead, I got the phone call...there has been a tragic accident, and all three are gone."

Russell believes the best place for the kids at the time was in a Pennsylvania foster home. But instead, child welfare authorities released them to Richard Kemp, Tina Kemp's brother, and their mother Geraldine Roberts in Shinglehouse, who in turn gave the children to Kemp and Green.

But Richard says Russell is spreading vicious lies.

"The family is very dysfunctional; nobody ever got along. I loved my sister, Tina, to death. I loved Eric to death. I loved Jessica and Chuckie," Richard said.

Richard also believes the children's mother, Mary Holmes, will clean up her act once she gets out of jail and raise Charlie.

But an uncle in Friendship told News 4 he is already petitioning a court in Pennsylvania to get custody of the baby, who is temporarily in foster care.

Child welfare authorities in the Keystone State have declined comment.