Fatal fire - Two children die in Essex County house blaze

Two children died in a four-alarm house fire in Orange Friday night, authorities said. A third child was pushed from a window and caught by neighbors.

Smoke pouring out of the window of an Orange home during a 4-alarm fire (CBS New York)

Five of the 7 residents of a home on Central Place made it to safety when the flames broke out around 8:30 p.m., according to the Essex County Prosecutor's Office. However, a one-year-old boy, identified as Zion Tony and his six-year-old sister Jayda McEachin were found dead on the third floor of the home.

Their mother was described as "distraught" according to the prosecutor's statement.

A third child was reported by neighbors to have been pushed from a window.

CBS New York reports neighbors told two children in a window to jump but they refused. “We see smoke coming from the front. We ran down, we looked up — there was two kids up there, and they was waving. So we were like, ‘Yo, jump!’ Now man, they didn’t jump,” said neighbor Darryl Mayfield. “But the little sister, she threw her brother out. The girl threw the brother out and we caught him.”

One person was hospitalized with burns to 60 percent of her body according to NBC 4 New York. A man who tried to re-enter the house was pulled back out by firefighters.

Orange Mayor Dwayne Warren told CBS New York that the bitter cold weather hampered efforts to fight the fire. “Our firefighters are out here. We’ve called neighboring towns as well. It’s particularly tough when you have frozen pipes, and the water freezes basically on impact, and so it’s good that we have a rotation of firefighters going in and out of the unit,” the mayor said.

Two American Red Cross volunteers assisted the two families displaced by the fire and arranged for clothing and temporary shelter.

No cause has yet been given for the fire. The Essex County Prosecutor's Office and the Orange Fire Department are investigating.