Among those killed in the fire in Nescopeck, about 45 miles southwest of Scranton, were three children, ages 5, 6 and 7, Pennsylvania State Police said. The other victims ranged in age from 19 to 79, officials said. The causes of the fire are being investigated. State police said three people managed to escape safely. Harold Baker, a firefighter with the Nescopeck Volunteer Fire Company, was asleep early Friday when he was awakened by the chirping of his pager, which reported a house fire with 10 people possibly trapped inside. Mr Baker rushed to the station and was then among the first firefighters to attend the scene. As he turned the corner, his heart sank, he said in a phone interview Friday night. The address he had been given was incorrect. His son Dale, 19, and daughter Starr, 22, were inside the house engulfed in flames, he said. In fact, Mr Baker said, he knew everyone in the two-storey house, which belonged to his brother-in-law, who managed to escape. “I tried to get in as fast as I could,” he said. “I tried three times and then they figured out whose house it was and why I was trying to go in there, and they kicked me out,” he said of his colleagues. “They said, ‘No, you have to get out of here.’ When they found Dale, a volunteer firefighter who had followed in his father’s footsteps, Mr Baker’s colleagues draped a flag over his body. “They took him out as a fallen firefighter,” he said. Star Baker, who was due to marry next year, also did not make it out alive, Mr Baker said, adding that he was related to eight of the 10 people who died in the fire. Violet Kessler of Berwick, Pa., said she was related to many of those who died. Among the family members she said she lost were her father, a brother, a sister-in-law, a nephew and a niece who was her godmother. He said some family members visited Thursday with plans to spend the day together Friday at a pool and decided to spend the night at the home. “I don’t even understand things,” he said of the losses. “I don’t even know how to put it all in my brain. It’s like a dream.” A neighbor, Michael Swank, said he woke up around 2:30 a.m. to what he initially thought were gunshots. He looked out and saw the porch of a house across the street engulfed in flames. He said the noises he heard sounded like paint cans or propane tanks catching fire and exploding. “I knew the Fire Department wasn’t going to make it in time” to save the occupants of the home, Mr. Swank said. He neither heard nor saw any activity to indicate anyone was trying to escape the fire, he said. “Boy, it was just a horrible fire” that quickly spread from the terrace to the upper floors, he said, adding: “It was an inferno. God bless the kids that were in there. They had no prayer.” In addition to Dale Baker and Star Baker, state police identified the adults who died as David Daubert Sr., 79. Brian Daubert, 42; Shannon Daubert, 45; Laura Daubert, 47; and Marian Slusser, 54. Mr. Swank said tenants in the home rarely stayed there for more than a year or two. Kirsten Noyes contributed to the research.
