Peter Sokol, a junior at Wakefield Memorial High School and altar boy at Most Blessed Sacrament Church, was found dead in a doorway leading to the living room after firefighters extinguished the flames that gutted the ranch-style home.
A source close to the investigation said the fire began outside the home and spread to the interior when Sokol ran inside.
``That's what one of the kids said. `When my brother ran in the house he was on fire,' and they all ran out of the house,'' neighbor Linda O'Neil told WBZ-TV (Ch. 4).
The cause of the deadly blaze is unknown.
``It clearly is an ongoing investigation,'' state Fire Marshal Stephen Coan said last night.
``Circumstances that surround the incident are not clearly known by the investigators at this point.''
Sokol was one of eight children in the popular family, friends said. His mother is a preschool teacher in town, neighbors said.
``It's an awful tragedy before Christmas. The (family is) well known to the town, well known to the fire department. It's a horrible tragedy,'' said fire Chief David Parr.
The fire chief got choked up when praising his firefighters' efforts to save the teen. ``They did one heck of a job to try to get into the house,'' he said.
Sokol once worked as a paper boy for the Wakefield Item, the newspaper where his older brother, David, works as a photographer, friends said. He was also a member of the high school marching band.
``He was a quiet kid. He was a nice kid. Just an all-around nice boy,'' said Robin Philbrook, a high school senior whose backyard borders the Sokols' yard.
``I always saw him and his brothers and sisters playing in the yard. He was always playing with his younger brothers and sisters.''
The flames were confined to the living room before spreading to the attic of 28 Old Nahant Road, Parr said.
``The first engine company on scene had heavy fire blowing out the front door of the house,'' Parr said. ``They made an aggressive attack and knocked the fire down fairly quickly.''
Neighbor Stephen Morelli, 19, said he saw firefighters crash their way into the burning home.
``It looked like it was in the middle of the house,'' he said of the fire. ``It was probably 6 feet over the roof.''
Fire officials were combing the burnt-out home for clues and listening to tapes of the 3:51 p.m. 911 call to determine who and where it came from, Parr said.
``We have some information that we're trying to piece together,'' Chief Parr said. ``We're still trying to piece together who was home and who was not home at the time of the fire.''
Investigators from the State Fire Marshal's Office and the state police unit assigned to the Middlesex District Attorney's Office were also on the scene.
Parr would not say if an accelerant was used or how the fire engulfed the living room so thoroughly. In what Parr called a ``coincidence,'' a Wakefield fire captain was in the home Tuesday to install four smoke detectors that appeared to have worked. No fire concerns led to the installation, Parr said.
A steady stream of Wakefield residents came by as word spread that a high school student had died. Teenagers filed past the home in the driving rain, some stopping and hugging each other.
Sokol's body was pulled from the home by 8:30 p.m. Firefighters removed their helmets as the coroner's van pulled away.
``He's just a nice kid,'' said neighbor Richard Morelli.
Grief counselors were to be on hand at Wakefield Memorial today, principal Gary Rook said.
``It's going to be a hard day at the high school,'' said one parent.
