Fire tore through a family's home in Pottsville, Pennsylvania on Mother's Day, authorities said, which killed four young children, their father and another relative while their mother was across the street doing laundry at a friend's house, the Associated Press reported. It began just before midnight on Sunday evening at the single-family home in Pottsville.
Firefighters later found all of the bodies on the third floor of the building, which sits on a steep hillside not far from the D.G. Yuengling & Son brewery in Pennsylvania's coal country, close to 90 miles northwest of Philadelphia.
The fire was declared under control shortly before 1 a.m. A fire marshal was sifting through the debris later Monday morning and authorities were searching for the cause.
Kelly Brown, who lost much of her immediate family is staying at her parent's house elsewhere in Pottsville
"She's a wreck," a friend said. "Not only did she lose, as she said, her best friend, her husband, her kids, but it also happened on Mother's Day."
The upper two floors of the three-story home were charred and the rear of the building appeared to have sustained heavy damage, with several of the walls knocked out. Furniture and other debris sat on the front lawn.
Crews from all the city's fire companies responded to the blaze and Pottsville fire Chief Todd March said crews had to proceed carefully through the building because of the extensive amount of damage.
