GREENFIELD — An early morning fire Sunday at 140 Meridian St. left three adults and a child dead.
The Northwestern district attorney’s office identified the four as Brian Tower, 48, Florenda Tower, 49, her son, Raymond Wood, 28, and his son, William Paul Clark, 5.
Greenfield Fire Chief Robert Strahan said a call came in at about 5:15 a.m. with a report of a home on fire with people possibly trapped inside. Police and fire personnel arrived shortly after and tried to gain entry to the house, but were beaten back because of the intense heat and the size of the fire, Strahan said.
He said that later during efforts to extinguish the blaze, firefighters found the four individuals inside.
The fire was brought under control about 45 minutes after firefighters arrived on scene, and the investigation into the cause began.
On Sunday afternoon, the one-and-a-half-story white house was charred, with large piles of belongings, including a child’s bicycle, outside. Fire trucks and other emergency response vehicles were in front of the house, but the street was otherwise quiet in the aftermath of the fire.
Rich and Deb Plotczik live three houses down from the house that caught fire. They said they woke up to sirens and saw the fire past the two houses in between and went outside.
“We just kept hoping no one was in there,” Deb Plotczik said.
Their worst fears were confirmed later in the day when they saw the fatalities on the news.
She said she saw firefighters and police yelling into the house, and the first responders busted a window to get in.
The investigation into the origin and cause of the fire in the one-family home is ongoing. State Police assigned to the state fire marshal’s office have taken over the investigation, with local departments assisting.