AUBURN -- While playing video games late Wednesday morning Paul Otis, 14, and Justin Lafler, 15, smelled smoke and then spotted flames that ignited on the front porch and eventually spread throughout the 14 Steel St. home.

After informing Otis' mother, Patricia Lafler, who was upstairs resting when the fire began, the boys began using pans of water to try to put out the fire that began to spread in the house.

By the time Lafler came downstairs and opened the door to their cellar, Lafler said the flames had spread to the basement. All three people and a dog at home at the time escaped safely. A cat and fish are believed to have perished.

Lafler said they have lived in the house for several years and that she had just purchased new bed sheets and a bed.

"I didn't have time to get anything out. We lost everything," Lafler said.

The Auburn Fire Department received an emergency call at 11:05 a.m. but because fire companies were at a state training station on Quarry Road, Auburn, AFD Interim Fire Chief Terry Winslow said the department was delayed arriving at the scene.

By noon, firefighters still tried to extinguish flames in the attic as the house's white paint turned black and the front panels began to fall off the front of the home.

At 12:30 p.m. family members from the Elbridge area made it to the scene looking for the Red Cross and answers for what to do when a family loses everything. Firefighters were still putting out flames that crept up the walls to the attic and were sporadically igniting.

For more, read Thursday's edition of The Citizen