I thought we might actually make it. I thought we might get through a long holiday weekend without a major breaking story, usually one that is not exactly emblematic of the weekend revelry.

I was thinking to myself as I drove into the office early this morning just that, how calm things seemed to have been this weekend.

No fatal shootings. No horrific holiday car crashes. No fireworks mishaps that too often put a damper on the July 4 holiday festivities.

Things had been eerily quiet over the weekend. For a cynical newspaper editor, it seemed like things were almost too quiet.

I was right. Heartbreakingly right.

I got the word just after I arrived at the office this morning. There was a fire in Chester. It would turn out to be every bit as horrendous as I feared.

Three people were killed, including a mother and her young daughter.

They had apparently been dropped off at the home on the 2300 block of West Third Street late last night. A few minutes later the boyfriend got a call on his cell phone. It was from the woman he had just dropped off. The house was filling up with smoke.

The man raced back to the now-burning structure. Heroically, he went inside looking for the woman and her daughter.

All three perished in the inferno.

We posted a story on our Web site early this morning. We will update the story all day, and have full coverage in the print edition tomorrow.

And I wish we didn’t have to do any of it. We almost made it through the holiday weekend.

Almost. Now it’s back to the real world.