Two men died Monday in a fire at a home off Peachtree Industrial Boulevard in Chamblee.

The fire broke out around 4:30 a.m. in a house on Parsons Drive, just inside I-285. The victims were Charles and Russell Ford, brothers in their mid- to late 50s, according to a nephew, Derrick Jett. Jett said his uncles had lived in the house since the early 1970s. Neither was married, he said.

Charles Ford was a Vietnam veteran, Jett said. While firefighters have not disclosed the cause of the fire, Jett said both of his uncles smoked. "I may be wrong, but there's a possibility that a cigarette may have had something to do with it," Jett said.

He said a neighbor tried to get his uncles out of the burning house. "She said she broke the glass, but the fire was just too big, and it started getting bigger and bigger," Jett said.

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Fulton DA Fani Willis (center) with Nathan J. Wade (right), the special prosecutor she hired to manage the Trump case and had a romantic relationship with, at a news conference announcing charges against President-elect Donald Trump and others in Atlanta, Aug. 14, 2023. Georgia’s Supreme Court on Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025, upheld an appeals court's decision to disqualify Willis from the election interference case against Trump and his allies. (Kenny Holston/New York Times)

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