Fire claimed the lives of two people and damaged two homes in Trenton on Saturday

The city of Trenton, New Jersey, is a place of ash and anguish, where the acrid smell of loss hangs heavy in the air. A house on the 100 block of South Cook Street is now a blackened shell, a silent testament to a tragedy that has torn the heart from a family.

It was just before noon on Saturday when the flames began their destructive work.

By the time the fire engines arrived, the home was fully engulfed, a voracious inferno that had already claimed two lives. Inside, firefighters fought their way through the heat and horror to find William Laster and his long-time partner dead on the first floor.

They did not escape.

Mr. Laster had lived in that home for more than twenty years.

His great niece, Takeeta DeLee, described him as a man who loved his family, a loving, caring person who, along with his brothers, acted as a father to the children in his life.

This blow is a cruel one, landing with the force of a second, devastating funeral. For this family had just buried Mr. Laster’s sister on Friday.

The mourners were still in town, their grief fresh, when they were called upon to mourn again.

In a desperate act of survival, a young woman trapped inside leaped from a third-floor window onto a roof, and then to the ground, escaping with her life but into a nightmare.

The family’s dog perished in the blaze.

And the destruction did not stop at one home. Smoke and flames reached into the twin house next door, displacing nine people who now must rely on the American Red Cross for shelter.

The fire was officially declared under control at 12:42 p.m. But for a grieving family, and for a neighborhood confronted with its own fragility, there is no control. Only questions.

Nibree Laster, a cousin, voiced the agony of the unknown, saying, “We’re trying to put the pieces together, we don’t know what happened, but we want to know. We want to know.”

The cause of the fire remains a mystery, its origin under investigation. But the result is all too clear: a family broken, a home destroyed, and a community left to wonder how, in the space of a single hour, so much can be so utterly lost.