Corio fire: Two children killed in fire near Geelong identified – as siblings fight for life

An 18-month-old and a three-year-old have been identified as the two children tragically killed in a shed fire over the weekend.

The blaze broke out inside a garden shed out the back of a home on Officer Court in Corio, a suburb of Geelong, south-west of Melbourne, at 10:30am on Sunday.

Emergency services including police, ambulance and fire crews arrived at the scene where debris and children’s toys were seen strewn across the backyard near the shed. 

Ashlynn McGregor, 18 months, and Saige McGregor, three, lost their lives in the fire, while their two older siblings, a girl and a boy, remain in hospital in critical conditions.

Debris and children’s toys are seen beside the shed at the home in Corio 

Ambulance Victoria said the two surviving children, who are understood to be of pre-school age, suffered severe burns.

Their father accompanied them to the hospital.

It’s understood their mother was inside the house and the four children were in the shed when the blaze broke out.

The fire is not being treated as suspicious.

A GoFundMe has since been launched to help support the family.

Ashlynn and Saige (pictured centre) were unable to be saved after the fire tore through the shed on Sunday

‘This family will never be the same without these children in their lives,’ a friend of the family wrote.

‘I’m hoping to help this family ease the financial cost of laying those beautiful babies to rest as this is such an unimaginable situation for any parent to go through.’

One local resident, Colin Stevenson, said the deaths had rocked the tight-knit community.

‘I couldn’t sleep. I was up at 2am in the morning thinking about it,’ he told Sunrise on Monday.

‘It is going to rock the area. You could hear a needle drop last night because there were no cars going around or anything.

Emergency services were called to the scene including police, ambulance and fire and rescue crews 

‘I think the community is feeling it and the people are overwhelmed at the moment, it’s just terrible. They will be feeling this for a long time.’

An investigation has been launched into the cause of the fire.

Victoria Police Inspector Emma Bartel said investigators ‘owed’ it to the family to uncover what sparked the blaze.

‘It is unfortunately the worst-case scenario of what we can expect with an incident like this. We can only do our best to support the family and do our best to provide them with some answers,’ she told reporters. 

A report will be prepared for the Coroner.