A fatal fire engulfed a Marist College off-campus house early this morning, killing at least one student, officials said.
Flames erupted around 1:30 a.m. at 112 Fairview Avenue. A passerby who called police watched on in horror as a panicking boyfriend tossed his girlfriend out of a first floor window to escape the raging blaze.
“All she kept saying is her best friend is inside,” Ashley Fauteux told the Poughkeepsie Journal.
Windows shattered loudly.
“We thought it was a house being broken into,” said Melissa Generoso, a 21-year-old Marist senior, who quickly looked out the window with her roommates.
“I saw a huge orange cloud of smoke,” the shaken student said. “It was a big orange ball of fire.”
Generoso watched as flames consumed the entire house.
“We saw a boy carrying a girl down the street,” she said.
It took hours for firemen to get it under control, the eyewitness said.
“There were embers flying everywhere,” she said. “It was absolutely enormous.”
“Now it’s completely burnt,” she said of the house.
Marist College confirmed that college students rented the house, but would not provide further information about the blaze.
“Marist security and other officials are working closely with the emergency responders to gather more information about the incident.,” the school said in a statement. “Town of Poughkeepsie police are in charge at the scene, and their investigation is continuing.”
“It’s very terrible and tragic,” said neighbor Carol Bender.
Betty Lou Cifone, a neighbor, said the hellish blaze in the wooden house was the worst she ever saw.
“It was a whole inferno,” she said.
Cifone bolted onto the freezing street as she heard fire trucks arriving.
“The house was fully engulfed at that point,” she said. “It’s very devastating.”
The neighbor said that the fire started in the kitchen.
cgiove@nypost.com