Seven children were among 11 people who died when a horrific fire trapped them inside a one-story Memphis home early Monday morning.

Pictures of the devastation showed the innards of the brick building torched. The outside of the house was left largely untouched. Metal bars remained over almost all the windows. Only one was broken open, by the fire crew that tried in vain to save the people inside.

“I’ve never seen firemen cry, but they were bawling like babies when they brought the children out,” neighbor Shoundra Hampton told The Tennessean.

Authorities said at a Monday morning news conference that nine people had died, but family members told reporters that 11 people perished.

The cause of the fire was not immediately determined, though Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland said the blaze began in the living room. The home had only two doors, both in the front of the house, leaving the family without an escape route, FOX13 reported.

Some of the victims had signs of smoke inhalation, while others had burns, Memphis Fire Services Director Gina Sweat said.

Sweat said it was not clear if those inside tried to escape through the windows. Sweat said window bars present a danger for people trying to escape a house fire, though many window bars have releases that can open them from the inside.

"They could have been simply overcome by smoke and never had an opportunity to escape," she said.

A smoke detector was found in the building, but it was damaged and officials didn't immediately know if it was working at the time of the fire, Sweat said.

The children who died ranged in age from 3 to 16 years old, The Tennessean reported. The four adults were Eloise Futrell, 61; Carol Collier, 56; Lakeisha Ward, 27; and an unidentified 18-year-old man.

Collier lived in the house with her 6-year-old son, Alonzo, who died in the fire; Futrell, who was the grandmother of all seven children who died; and several friends, Collier’s sister, Mary Whitmore, told The Tennessean.

"She always tried to help everybody," Whitmore said. "I can't believe this."

Collier called 911, The Tennessean reported, but, by the time first responders arrived around 1:20 a.m., the residents were unable to escape the six-room dwelling.

Officials said the blaze was the deadliest in Memphis since the 1920s. A total of 10 people died in house fires across all of Tennessee in 2015, authorities told FOX13.

"They are all gone," Futrell's niece, Elisa Weathersby, told The Tennessean. "Our hearts are ripped in two."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

</s>President Obama plans to veto a bill Congress approved without objection that would allow families of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to sue the government of Saudi Arabia, a White House spokesman said Monday.

Obama did not mention his opposition to the bill, which would let courts waive claims to foreign sovereign immunity in cases involving terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, during brief remarks to reporters after meeting with congressional leaders. Administration officials cited fears that foreign governments might exploit the legislation to drag American officials into court.

Yet the White House’s effort to stop the widely popular measure from becoming law might be short-lived: congressional leaders have suggested that they would try to override a veto, and they probably have sufficient support in both chambers to do so.

“It’s not hard to imagine other countries using this law as an excuse to haul U.S. diplomats, U.S. service members or even U.S. companies into courts all around the world,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. “The president feels quite strongly about this.”

The announcement came hours before Obama held a bipartisan meeting in the Oval Office with congressional leaders in a bid to forge agreement on averting a government shutdown and funding to combat the Zika virus.

Obama’s first meeting with both House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) since February came a week after lawmakers returned to Washington from a seven-week summer recess. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) also attended.

The president laid out his priorities — including federal funding for flood relief in Louisiana, an Asia Pacific trade deal and criminal-justice reform — at a time when most in Washington expect there is little chance for collaboration on major legislation before the November presidential election.

“There’s still business to be done,” Obama said. “My hope is that we can make some modest progress.”

Foremost on the agenda, Obama said, is averting a partial federal government shutdown at the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. That effort has been complicated by Republican Party infighting over how long to extend funding.

McConnell and a majority of House Republicans want to set a new deadline in December to craft a year-long spending bill — a position also supported by the White House and congressional Democratic leaders. But a minority of House conservatives favor a stopgap measure that would extend current funding levels into next year, giving a new president and Congress the opportunity to craft long-term spending plans.

The budget issue appears on track to get resolved in tandem with a compromise on Zika funding. The Senate agreed on a $1.1 billion Zika funding package in May, but the House passed an alternative $1.1 billion measure that Democrats oppose because it blocks funding to a Planned Parenthood affiliate in Puerto Rico.

That bill has been filibustered by Senate Democrats since June, but negotiators say there has been progress toward a resolution.

The House passed the 9/11 victims’ legislation by voice vote on Friday, with members calling it a “moral imperative” to allow families to seek justice for the deaths of loved ones. The Senate had approved the legislation in May.

On Sunday, a group of Sept. 11 attack victims’ relatives sent an open letter to Obama, imploring him not to “slam the door shut and abandon us” by vetoing the bill.

But the White House has long argued there are bigger issues at play than the pending lawsuit. Officials have emphasized the need to maintain the tradition of extending sovereign immunity to foreign officials, for the sake of ensuring that American officials don’t become subject to foreign lawsuits, or worse.

There are also concerns about how the measure might complicate relations with Saudi Arabia. Earlier this summer, Congress released a set of previously classified pages from a congressional inquiry into the Sept. 11 attacks, exploring allegations that Saudi officials supported the perpetrators. But the pages shed no significant new light on Saudi Arabia’s alleged ties to the attack.

Saudi Arabia has been lobbying hard against the legislation, even threatening to sell off U.S. assets. Earnest acknowledged that Obama’s stance could anger the families of Americans who died in the terrorist attacks 15 years ago.

But he added that Obama’s “words and deeds when standing up for the interests of the 9/11 families speak for themselves,” citing the U.S. military raid that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 2011, among other things.
A house fire in Memphis kills at least 11 people.