Only two hours into the New Year, 1989, the small rural town of Remer, Minnesota, located approximately 85 miles west of Duluth, Minnesota experienced the most devastating single-family house fire in the State's history. Ten people perished, apparently as they slept, when a fire rapidly spread through an old two-story schoolhouse that had been moved onto the site and converted for use as a residential occupancy. Eight children from three families and the parents of two of the children died in the fire. The surviving parents of four of the children had left the house at about 2300 hours that evening, New Year's Eve, to celebrate a birthday at a local Pub. They came home at about 0230 to discover the house ablaze and firefighters on the scene. Specific cause of the fire was undetermined. Strong consideration was given to faulty electrical, over-fused circuits and human factors after extensive investigation and statements made by the victims prior to the fire and in statements written in a journal by Kimberly Smischney, one of the children killed in the fire.