"Horrific" Brockton, Massachusetts fire kills woman in her 40s

A woman in her 40s was killed on Easter weekend in a house fire on Glendale Avenue in Brockton, Massachusetts. 

It happened shortly after midnight early Saturday morning. 

Neighbor Aderito Mendes said he was just getting home from work when he saw the house on fire. He said the woman's son told him she was trapped upstairs.

"I tried to go upstairs to get her out but I couldn't see anything," Mendes said.

He said the smoke was so thick he could barely breathe.

"I tried to crawl on the ground to call for her but she didn't respond. I didn't know which way to go," he said.

Brockton Fire Chief Brian Nardelli say by the time firefighters arrived, there was heavy fire on the second floor. 

"When they got up there, the room she was in was completely engulfed in flames and when they were able put it out they did find her remains," Nardelli said. 

Janice Maurath knows the woman who died. 

"She was kind of a bubbly girl. She had her son. She worked and took care of him," she said. "It's awful ... to lose somebody is difficult enough as it is, but to lose someone so young, so tragically in a horrific fire like that ... around the holidays, it's worse."

The house did have working smoke detectors. Nardelli says it was the alarm that woke up the family. 

Two other family members were transported to the hospital, a 70-year-old man and a teenager who both had non-life-threatening injuries. 

Mendes says he wished he could've done more to help.

"I feel sad and same time I feel encouraged to try to help but there wasn't much that I can do when I can't see anything, the smoke started to suffocate me," Mendes said. 

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.