Four Killed in an Early Morning House Fire Outside Albany

An early morning house fire killed four people, including a 5-year-old girl, in New Scotland, N.Y., outside of Albany, on Saturday, officials said.

A 14-year-old boy survived the blaze, jumping to safety from a second-story window as the fire engulfed the house, said Craig Apple, the Albany County sheriff. He was being treated at a hospital for minor injuries.

Officials have not yet identified those who were killed, but they confirmed that a 35-year-old man died along with his young daughter; his uncle, 64; and his girlfriend, 40.

“It’s very upsetting,” Timothy Cavanaugh, the Albany County coroner, said. “I’ve been doing this for 36 years, and it’s one of the worst ones I can remember.”

The fire broke out at 64 Normanskill Road in New Scotland, a small community about 11 miles west of Albany, the sheriff said. The address is linked to a business called Circle Tree Farm, which has been owned by the same family for generations, according to a GoFundMe post from January.

The sheriff’s office was alerted to the fire at around 5:15 a.m. when a woman called 911 in “great distress,” Mr. Apple said in a phone interview.

The woman told a dispatcher that she was in a bedroom with the 5-year-old girl and that they were trapped by “extensive flames” outside the door and an air-conditioner mounted in the window, he said. The woman said others were in the two-story house with them, but she was unsure where they were located.

“It was a very horrific 911 call,” Mr. Apple said.

Within minutes, sheriff’s deputies and emergency medical responders were at the house, but they were unable to get inside because of rapidly spreading smoke and fire. Firefighters who arrived shortly afterward also could not find a way into the house, Mr. Apple said.

More than a dozen volunteer fire departments in the area responded to the scene, hauling water and creating portable ponds to fight the fire, Mr. Apple said.

“The heat, they said it was unbelievable,” he said.

The home also had a tin roof, “which kept all the heat inside that place” Mr. Apple said.

Once responders were able to control the blaze, they made it into the home and found all four victims dead on the second floor. The cause of the fire was still under investigation early Saturday afternoon, Mr. Apple said, and it was unclear if there were smoke alarms in the home.

Autopsies to determine the causes of death for the four victims will be performed on Monday, Mr. Cavanaugh said.

The family who had lived at the home had a small garden from which they sold produce, and they had also sold firewood there for decades, Mr. Apple said. Their deaths have hit the local community hard, he said.

“This one family in particular has lived in that stretch of the road for years and years,” Mr. Apple said, adding, “It’s just a true, true, horrific tragedy.”