NEWARK — A fast-moving fire ripped through a single-family home in New Jersey's largest city early Sunday, killing six people, authorities said.
The blaze broke out at the three-story residence around 4 a.m. in Newark, the Essex County prosecutor's office said. The fire soon spread to another residence, and both homes were destroyed.
The fire does not appear to be suspicious, but the cause remains under investigation, said Thomas Fennelly, chief assistant prosecutor. Everyone in the second home managed to escape safely, he said.
Authorities have not identified any of the victims, but Iris Sydney said her 15-year-old grandson and his mother were among the six killed in the blaze. She said her grandson was supposed to meet her Sunday for Father's Day at the church his father attended before he died in an accident two years ago.
Sydney said the boy didn't show up and when she returned home, an Essex County sheriff's deputy was there and told her both he and his mother, Noreen Johnson, had died in the fire Sunday.
All that remained of the home Sunday afternoon was the charred frame, with piles of blackened, twisted furniture and belongings spilling out of the empty sills that once held windows. The white fence around the front of the property was still intact.
Carol Valentine sorted through smoke-damaged photographs and photo albums with charred pages on the sidewalk in front of her fiance's home, which is next door to the residence where the fire started. Her fiance had been out of town and returned early Sunday to his home, which was already ablaze.
''He'd been delayed on planes for two days. He had gone to a graduation,'' she said. ''Had he not been delayed, he would have been sleeping, and he probably wouldn't be alive.''