KNOX — A house fire took the lives of a Knox couple on Thompsons Lake Road early Tuesday morning.

The fire was called in a number of times in the early morning hours, with the initial call coming from a witness at the Green Acres trailer park nearby, Knox fire Chief Bill Vinson told The Enterprise.

“Unknown how long it was burning for” at the time of the calls, Vinson said, after explaining that the home was “fully involved from top to bottom” by the time he got there, one minute after an Albany County Sheriff’s deputy made first arrival. 

County Sheriff Craig Apple confirmed on social media Wednesday that two bodies were recovered from the fire, and that autopsies will be performed “in the near future.” The investigation is pending the outcome of the autopsies, he said.

Vinson described the victims as husband and wife. The identities of the victims have not been released.

The town’s assessment roll lists the property at 1545 Thompsons Lake Road as being owned by Edward and Alice Gavin with a full-market value of $263,684.

Vinson said there was “nothing to save” so firefighters — from Knox and five other companies in the area — focused on extinguishing the fire and keeping the bedroom, where the occupants were presumed to be, as protected as possible. 

“We were just extinguishing it from the outside,” he said. “As we were getting it knocked down, we were told this could be the area where the husband and wife were sleeping in, so we concentrated on that area to keep it cool, but to get the rest of the house that fell down put out as best we can and go from there.” 

Once the fire was mostly out, Vinson said the sheriff’s department went in with an excavator to expose smoldering areas, taking care not to disturb the spot where the bodies were later discovered. 

The cause of the fire is unconfirmed, but Vinson said he “wrote it up as a chimney fire. It’s hard to say where the origin started but I believe it was a wood stove.” 

The fatal Knox fire follows a fire in Westerlo on Thanksgiving night, Nov. 28, that left a family with three children, including at least one who is disabled, without their home or their belongings. 

Westerlo Fire Chief Andrew Joslin told The Enterprise that the cause of that fire is still under investigation, but that there was a third, smaller fire that started in a chimney the same week. That chimney fire was caught before it spread to the rest of the structure, he said. 

The Knox and Westerlo chiefs, along with Sheriff Apple, advised homeowners to make sure their heating systems are well cared for this winter.