Four deaths have been confirmed.
A toddler, an infant and two senior citizens perished Thursday in what may be one of the worst fires in Harford County?s history.
The fire was so intense Thursday it warped the vinyl siding on the side of a home built more than a century ago.
Firefighters found the bodies of homeowner Jerome Shropshire, 72, an unidentified 60-year-old woman, an 8-month-old girl and a boy believed to be either 3 or 4 years old.
Investigators still were searching for the body of another young boy who they believe died in the blaze in Abingdon.
The children?s names were not released as of Thursday afternoon.
The cause of the fire inside the $200,000 house was under investigation.
More than65 firefighters from six Harford County fire companies responded to the house fire at 3407 Philadelphia Road on Route 7 shortly before 10:30 a.m. The fire was under control within 30 minutes, officials said.
Officials said they could not recall a tragedy of such proportion.
Next-door neighbors Richard and Barbara Lentini were the first to notice the fire.
“I was returning home from the post office when I saw smoke billowing from the front of the house,” Richard Lentini said.
Lentini said he was using his own hose to attempt to douse the fire when he noticed two Harford County Sheriff?s deputies carrying Shropshire out of the back of the house.
Shropshire was rushed to the Upper Chesapeake Medical Center in Bel Air, where he was pronounced dead, Harford County fire spokesman Dave Williams said.
Deputy State Fire Marshal W. Faron Taylor suggested the people killed in Thursday?s blaze died of smoke inhalation caused by belongings that caught fire.
Taylor also said there was no evidence the home had working smoke detectors.
State Fire Marshal William Barnard said there were no fire fatalities in Harford in 2006 and only one in 2005.
Shaking her head at the blackened frame of her neighbor?s home, Barbara Lentini said of Shropshire, “He never did any harm to anyone. We used to talk to him over the fence all the time. He was the nicest man.”
Associated Press contributed to this story.
