BUFFALO - As 107 Thomas St. burned Sunday morning, neighbors used boards, garbage barrels and their bare hands to break windows, trying to get to the young couple inside.

On Monday, the futility of their efforts weighed heavily as they mourned the loss of a vibrant 20-year-old woman they had watched grow up and her 19-year-old friend.

“If we had a minute more - one more minute - they would have had them,” said Heidi Schwartz, standing a few doors down from the destroyed 2 1/2-story house, the smell of charred wood in the air.

Stacey Edwards, who graduated in June from South Park High School, and Justin Schelble-Bosinski died near the windows in a first-floor bedroom, just out of reach of the neighbors trying to save them.

Edwards' aunt, Christine Simon, said fire investigators told the family they suspect arson after a liquid accelerant was detected.

Fire officials did not immediately respond to telephone calls Monday.

The home is owned by Simon's mother, Kathleen Grabowski, Edwards' grandmother.

She escaped the fire with her son, Michael, who tried to rescue the couple with the neighbors' help.

“We broke the windows, we were grabbing stuff. We were calling for them, yelling, trying to reach in and grab them,” next-door neighbor James Murphy said. “People were stopping in cars. The smoke was so bad you couldn't put your head in the window.”

When Edwards' mother arrived at the house Monday, she hugged Murphy.

“I know he tried,” Donna Edwards said.

“They feel like they failed these two kids,” said Schwartz, whose 26-year-old son Johnathan's hands were cut and burned in the rescue efforts.

“It's great what everybody did,” said another neighbor, Kelly Crimi. “I feel bad the way they feel now. There's nothing anybody can say to them.”

After arriving at the house two minutes after the 8:13 a.m. call, firefighter James Wrest was able to grab hold of Schelble-Bosinski's legs, but just then flames burst into the room, the neighbors said, and kept him from bringing him out.

“The poor firefighter. He was on fire. But he wouldn't let go,” Murphy said.

Wrest suffered burns to his arms, wrists and neck.

A second firefighter also was treated at a Buffalo hospital after falling through a collapsed floor, authorities said.

Schelble-Bosinski's father pulled up to the scene in a pickup truck Monday and cried. From the side yard, he placed red carnations on two blackened windowsills.

He declined to speak to a reporter about his son.

Stacey Edwards was a member of the Junior ROTC program in high school and wanted to pursue a career in the Army, her mother said.

She had recently attended the funeral of another member of her graduating class, relatives said. Matthew Neary, 18, drowned when he fell into the Buffalo River from a bridge Aug. 26.

A school spokesman said grief counselors would be at the school for Wednesday's start of classes.