A Walker County teacher was killed and his wife and two young children were seriously injured when a fire swept through their home early Sunday morning.
Walker County Fire Marshal Scott Forrest said crews were dispatched around 7:38 a.m. to reports of smoke inside a home at 127 Ridgewood Circle near Chickamauga. Firefighters arrived about nine minutes later to find heavy smoke and flames coming from the front of the house.
Heather Millican and her children, ages 3 and 8, had made it out safely, but her husband, John Millican III, remained trapped inside. Firefighters located him unconscious in a back bedroom and rushed him to a hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.
Millican was a teacher and coach at LaFayette High School. His wife, a social studies teacher at LaFayette Middle School, and both children were taken to Vanderbilt Burn Center in Nashville for treatment of serious injuries.
Investigators said the cause of the fire remains under investigation. The home was declared a total loss.
