Three people in a family of four died in the fire on East 5th Avenue. The one who lived was the five-year-old her father held out a second-story window until someone could take her.
Shortly after 1 a.m. on April 1, 2026, a fire broke out at ground level outside a two-and-a-half story duplex in the 600 block of East 5th Avenue in Lancaster, Ohio. It started beneath the building's external staircase.
The flames climbed the wood siding and extended above the roof. Thick black smoke filled every level of the building.
Mason Marshall lived on the upper floor with his fiancée, Christen Woodman, and their two children. He was 27, a subcontractor. Their daughter Rowyn was five. Their son, Mason Jr., was nine months old.
The family's only exterior door opened onto the same staircase the fire had ignited below. Marshall went to Rowyn's room. He dislodged a window air conditioner.
He picked up his daughter and held her out the window. Neighbors below brought a ladder and extended it toward him.
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While they worked, Marshall called down: "I have to get the baby, you guys. Hurry."
A Lancaster police officer climbed the ladder. He took Rowyn from her father's arms and carried her to the ground. The officer called up to Marshall and told him to go back inside and get the baby.
Marshall did not come down. He turned away from the window and went back inside to get the baby.
He did not come back. Firefighters arrived to find the duplex fully engulfed. All three had died. Rowyn Marshall was the sole survivor of her family.
The Lancaster Fire Department investigated for 13 days. The fire's location had blocked the exits for both units in the duplex, trapping everyone inside.
The cause was ruled undetermined, but the available evidence supports that it was accidental. In September 2026, the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission awarded Mason Marshall the Carnegie Medal posthumously.
He had a clear path out. A ladder was right in front of him, a police officer was telling him to take it, and his five-year-old was already safe on the ground below.
Behind him, in a house filling with carbon monoxide, was a nine-month-old boy who carried his name.
He turned around. The community in Lancaster raised money for Rowyn in the days after the fire. Every hour of work, every dollar earned, every plan for the future came down to a single measure that night. Did the children get out.
One did. Because he stayed.
If you were standing at that window, your daughter safe below and your infant son somewhere in the dark behind you, would you climb down?
