NESCOPECK, Pa.  (AP) – A fire quickly tore through a northeastern Pennsylvania home early Friday morning, killing seven adults and three children and horrifying a volunteer firefighter who arrived to put out the blaze only to discover the victims were his own family, reports said. the authorities.  .
The children who died were ages 5, 6 and 7, Pennsylvania State Police said in a news release, while the seven adults ranged in age from their teens to a 79-year-old man.  Autopsies were scheduled for this weekend.
Harold Baker, a volunteer firefighter in the town of Nescopeck, said the 10 victims included his son, daughter, father-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, three grandchildren and two other relatives.  He said his two children and the other young victims were visiting their aunt and uncle’s house for swimming and other summer fun.
He said 13 dogs were also in the two-story home, but would not say if he knew if any survived.
“All I wanted to do was go there and go to those people, my family.  That’s all I was thinking about, getting to know them,” Baker said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.
Baker grabbed a hose and an air pack and began pouring water on the fire, desperate to get in and calling out to his son.  His chief figured out whose house it was, and his fellow firefighters escorted Baker back to the firehouse.
A preliminary investigation shows the fire started on the front porch around 2:30 a.m., Luzerne County Prosecutor Sam Sanguedolce said Friday night.
“The information I have is that the fire started and progressed very quickly, making it very difficult to get out,” he said.
Three people managed to escape the fire, Sanguedolce said.  Four state police firefighters are involved in the investigation, though it will not be classified as a criminal investigation unless they determine the fire was set intentionally, he said.
Nescopeck is a small town on the Susquehanna River, about 20 miles southwest of Wilkes-Barre.  The house was on a residential street with mostly owner-occupied, single-family homes.
Baker said the address originally given for the call was a neighboring home.  He realized it was the residence of his family members as the fire truck approached.  He said his unit was the first on the scene and the house was already engulfed in flames.
“There was nothing we could do to get in there.  We tried, but we couldn’t get in,” said Baker, 57, who has been a firefighter for 40 years.
His son, 19-year-old Dale Baker, had followed both his parents into the fire service, joining when he was 16.
“He’s been saying it all his life, he’s just going to be like his dad,” Harold Baker said.
Heidi Knorr, secretary of the Nescopeck Volunteer Fire Company, called Dale Baker “such a fun soul.  He just loved life.”
The family was “always willing to help anyone in need,” Knorr said.  Dale’s mother was not among the dead listed by Harold Baker.
Mike Swank, who lives two doors across, said he happened to wake up early Friday and looked outside after hearing a loud explosion.  He saw the porch “really go” and got out, using another neighbor’s hose to keep the fire from spreading to a garage.
“I saw two guys outside and they were in various states of hysteria,” Swank told the AP by phone.
One man was on a cell phone, “and I’m trying to ask him if everybody’s out,” he said.  “The other one was out on the street just running in circles.”
Swank said he was unable to get information from them.  A fence prevented him from reaching the rear of the property.
Baker said 14 people lived in the home.  One was outside delivering newspapers and three others escaped.
Swank said the family had moved in a few months ago under what he understood to be a rental agreement and spent a lot of time on the messy front porch.
“It was so fast and so smokey, you just knew nobody was going to make it,” Swank said.  He saw cadaver dogs being used to search the scene until the bodies were located.
Scolforo and Brooke Schultz reported from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.