Officials are investigating after finding “several” people dead following an early morning house fire in a Rochester, New York, suburb early Saturday.
Irondequoit Police said a 911 call came in just before 5:30 a.m. Police and fire personnel from several jurisdictions responded to the call and “quickly” brought the blaze under control.
But once the fire was out, personnel found “several individuals” dead inside the structure. Police said it was “too soon” to release the name or number of people who were found dead but that they were treating the incident as a homicide.
The medical examiner will provide a cause and manner of death.
“We will be here as long as it takes,” Chief of Police Scott Peters told WROC. “We’re going systematically through the house. Our technicians are working from the top to bottom to be able to collect all of the evidence inside there. There is a lot. We’re working in conjunction with the Monroe County Fire Bureau, and we also have New York State fire investigators – arson investigators here.”
Peters added that neighbors said the family who lived in the house were “wonderful people, very nice.”
“I hate to use the term that it’s an ‘isolated incident,’ but this was not a random act,” he said.
