DAYTON — Summer Gentry's 29-year-old hands bear the scars from the fire that almost claimed her life in 1986.

It left 36 percent of Gentry's then-7-year-old body badly burned, her mother Susan Jones said Friday, Nov. 28.

"Her hands are completely skin-graphed," Jones said. "That's why I don't believe she would start a fire. She wouldn't do this to her kids."

Dayton police said Gentry admitted to starting a fire in her home in the 400 block of Edgar Avenue at about 10 p.m. Monday, Nov. 24.

No one was seriously hurt, but Gentry has temporarily lost custody of her children.

Police arrived Monday to find smoke pouring out of the house, according to a police report.

Officers said a newspaper was set on fire in the kitchen.

While on her way to jail, Gentry allegedly told an officer she started the fire because she was "tired of taking care of her family and the house itself."

She said Friday she doesn't remember saying that, but said she was belligerent with police and had been drinking.

"I think the newspaper caught fire by accident," she said. "I would never put my children in danger like that."

Gentry said she never wants her children to experience the horror of being burned like she was on Sept. 1, 1986.

That fire started on a living room sofa at about midnight and quickly engulfed the house on Minnesota Drive in Xenia.

Gentry, Jones and then-fiance John Jones were inside.

Gentry spent 42 days in the Shriners Burn Institute in Cincinnati recovering from third-degree burns to her hands, arms and face.

"You live with that pain every day," Susan Jones said. "The emotional scars never really heal."

Gentry said she had been arguing with Renaldo Evans, 29, the father of her two children, when Monday's fire started.

After the smoke cleared, officers went inside the house and found it in deplorable condition, the report stated.

There were empty alcohol bottles, food in the carpet, trash and clothes everywhere, including piled around the toilet, according to the police report.

They said they found only a package of bologna and a bottle of ketchup in the fridge.

"There were frozen dinners, meat and hot dogs in the fridge and freezer," Gentry said. "There was food there to eat."

The house was a mess because, as Gentry put it, she wasn't going to "clean up after pigs anymore."

Officers called Children Services and the couple's two children, ages 5 years and 7 months, were removed from the home.

Jones is looking after her grandchildren while Evans and Gentry face child endangering charges filed by Dayton police.

The couple has to clean up the home and complete a crisis management course before they can get the kids back, Gentry said.

Gentry said her experience as a child might be the reason she drinks and acts out, but said that everyone gets frustrated.

"Everyone gets fed up at some point," Gentry said. "I was tired of taking care of everything and I had been drinking. That's all this is. I am a normal person."

Staff writer Lynn Hulsey contributed to this story.