Early morning house fire at Albany area family farm leaves 5-year-old girl, 3 more dead

An early-morning fire sparked inside a home just outside Albany early Saturday killed four people, including a 5-year-old girl, officials said.

A 35-year-old man, a 40-year-old woman, and a 64-year-old man also died in the blaze at 64 Normanskill Road, the Times Union reported. The address is linked to a longtime farm and family business, called Circle Tree Farm. It has been owned by the same family for generations, according to a GoFundMe post from January asking for donations to help keep their local farm running.

Firefighters raced to the rural property in New Scotland at 5:15 a.m. in response to a 911 call from an obviously distressed woman, who told dispatchers she was trapped inside a room in the burning house, and that she couldn’t escape due to an air conditioner in the window. By the time first responders arrived on the scene, the home was already entirely consumed in flames.

“It’s a horrible scene,” Albany County Sheriff Craig D. Apple Sr. told reporters. “I feel horribly for the family, the neighbors.”

The lone survivor, a 14-year-old boy, jumped from a second-story window to escape the blaze, Apple said. He is being treated at Albany Medical Center for minor scrapes and bruises.

None of the victims have been publicly identified.

Investigators said they have a sense of where the fire started, but they have not yet been able to get inside the home to confirm.

Apple added several local roads were shut down as fire crews from multiple agencies hauled water to and battled the blaze.

“Please pray for our FF’s and victims of this tragedy,” the sheriff wrote on Facebook, referring to the firefighters working to put out the fire.

With News Wire Services