CHAPPELL (AP) - As investigators continue to search for a cause of the fiery crash that killed four children, people from the family's town are struggling with the aftermath.
Two of those killed were 6 years old; the other two were 15.
Three other children, age 7 to 12, were critically injured and will be sent to a burn hospital in Texas.
Thirty-seven-year-old Laura Nelson, the driver of the vehicle and mother of two of the dead children, was being treated in Denver.
The deadly accident, just south of Chappell's main street, was a shock to the small farm town.
"It's going to be real tough on a lot of people," said Cristy Amen, a server at Toot's Bar and Grill.
"It's a cloud over the community," said Al Penfie, who runs the town lumber yard.
The accident was particularly tough for the volunteer firefighters and emergency medical technicians who responded and aren't used to seeing what they came across, said Deuel County Attorney Doug Palik.
"That's not something you want to see or care to see," he said. "It's probably one of the worst things they've ever come across."
The last time anything close to it happened was about 10 years ago when a family of three was killed in a wreck along Interstate 80 during a blizzard, Palik said.
Townspeople said they knew very little about the family in the crash.
They lived on about five acres south of town, only a couple miles from the Colorado border.
They didn't farm, but the house is surrounded by wheat and corn fields.
They kept to themselves, Palik said,
The driveway to their house was gated shut Thursday with hand-painted plywood signs outside that said "No Trespassing" and "If You Don't Have Permission, Do Not Enter."
The accident happened about five miles from their home on a sunny, wind-free Wednesday afternoon as they were returning from a camping trip.
Alan Wilson, Nelson's brother-in-law, said Nelson and her husband had picked up the 1970s, 22-foot Winnebago about four days earlier.
"Laura was the driver, and she hit the brakes, but there were no brakes. She ended up in a field," Wilson said.
The tire tracks in the grass start about 50 yards away from where the crosses now mark the site of the wreck.
Along the way there is a burnt spot of grass, a bent metal road sign and a larger charred piece of ground where the Winnebago came to rest.
The patrol completed its onsite investigation of the vehicle late Thursday, and Palik expected results sometime next week.
He said he wouldn't have information about the accident, including whether there was a door that separated the driver from the back of the vehicle, until he read the report.
However, Palik said three-fourths of the recreational vehicle had burned away.
While the cause of the fire was not immediately known, investigators believe it began in the motor home's engine and caused Nelson to run into a ditch, through a fence and into a pasture, said Nebraska State patrol spokeswoman Terri Teuber.
Nelson's two children, Ruby, 15, and Haley, 6, and their cousins, Anton Clairborne, 15, and Merakal Richardson Reed, 6, were killed in the fire, said the children's grandmothers, Kathleen Kaczar and Kalyn Nelson.
The bodies of the Nelson children will be cremated and a memorial will be held later, once Nelson is out of the hospital, Kaczar said. Arrangements for Anton and Merakal were not immediately known.
Family members believe Anton saved Nelson's life.
He was in the front passenger seat but his body was found in the back, and family members said they believe he tried to help the other children escape.
The injured Nelson was dangling by her seat belt out of the driver's side open door after the vehicle left the road, Kaczar said. That is when her seat belt was released by someone from behind, allowing her to fall away from the burning motor home, Kaczar said.
"We really think that Anton was the hero," she said. "We think he pushed the button on her seat belt."
Nelson and at least one child were outside the vehicle when it was discovered burning just off Interstate 80 at the Chappell interchange, Teuber said. The others were found inside the motor home, she said.
"They were laying all over the ground," Johnny Strack, a maintenance worker at an interstate rest area, said of the victims. "It looked pretty bad."
Nelson and three of the children - Kenny Reed, 10; Josh Clark, 12, and Avion Reed, 7 - were taken to a Sidney hospital before being flown to Denver.
The children were to be later flown to Shriner's Hospital in Galveston, Texas, that specializes in treating burn patients, Kaczar said.
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