(Reuters) – Eight people died in a house fire on Thursday in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, where police said the blaze was being investigated as a homicide.
Neighbors reported the fire about 4 p.m. (2100 GMT) in the Tulsa suburb of about 40,000 people, police said. Officials provided scant details of what happened or who was killed.
“Preliminary reports are that this is going to be a homicide investigation,” Broken Arrow police spokesperson Ethan Hutchins told reporters. “We’re still focused on trying to put out the fire and also investigate what happened to these victims.”
He declined to comment on any search for a suspect.
Agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were called to help investigate, Hutchins said, calling it a “complex scene.”
“Understandably, this is a shock to Broken Arrow. It’s a safe city,” Huthcins said. “And so, we’re asking the community to please pray and come together because this is something that we don’t experience as a city very often.”
(Reporting by Daniel Trotta in Carlsbad, Calif.; Editing by Gerry Doyle)