The West Virginia Fire Marshal's Office said the fire was reported at about 5 a.m. on Mud Fork Road in the Chloe area.

Neighbors identified the woman killed as Darlene Gooslin, 57. Her grandchildren in the fire were a 7-year-old boy, a 6-year-old girl and a 5-year-old girl.

The two injured men, David Jackson and Benje Jackson, were identified as Gooslin's sons. They were taken to Charleston Area Medical Center. Authorities had not officially released any of the victims' names by Thursday evening.

Anthony Boggs, principal of Big Otter Elementary School in neighboring Clay County, said the three children were students there. One girl attended preschool for a short time and the other two were enrolled as students, he said.

Grief counselors will be at the school Friday to help students, whom Boggs described as a close-knit group. Teachers and staff members were emotional Thursday, he said, but were being strong for their students.

"They are still letting it all sink in," Boggs said.

The school decided not to tell students about their classmates' deaths on Thursday.

"Being at an elementary age, we want to leave it up to the family, because every family handles it differently," the principal said.

Rhonda Tanner keeps cows in a pasture near the family's home, a mobile home with rooms that were added on. Tanner said she often saw the children, whom she described as "absolutely adorable . . . very pretty little kids."

"When I heard this morning, I could have cried," she said.

"They were cute as buttons. They'd holler out, 'What you doing over there?'" she said, recalling how she'd caution them to stay away from the bull. "They didn't have much room to play, but they seemed happy."

Tanner said the grandmother stayed at home to care for the children fulltime.

It was the second fire at the property, said Tanner, whose daughter is a local volunteer firefighter. About a year ago, a camper parked next to the house was destroyed.

Tanner said she didn't know her neighbors well."They pretty well stayed off to themselves," she said.

Lois Cummings, who lives about a quarter-mile away, said she didn't know them well, either, but called the grandmother "a sweet, sweet lady.

"And the grandkids were awesome," she said. "They were great neighbors. It's a sad situation whenever a whole family gets killed like that."

The cause of the fire hasn't been determined, but Assistant State Fire Marshal Mark Lambert said there were no signs of smoke detectors.

"We do tend to see more fires in the winter -- often heat-related," he said.

Lambert urged people to buy detectors to keep their families safe.