Family and friends consoled one another outside the badly damaged home of an elderly Pauoa Valley couple killed Monday in a midday fire.

Emergency Medical Services said a 15-year-old boy, who was also in the house when the fire started, escaped and declined treatment.

Family members declined to say what the couple’s relationship to the teen was. Neighbors said the couple had lived at the house at 444 Kekuanoni Place for more than 50 years and lived upstairs, and the 15-year-old was either their grandson or possibly great-grandson, who lived downstairs.

The Honolulu Fire Department said five people lived at the home. Three were at home at the time of the blaze, and one escaped.

Firefighters discovered the bodies of the two others in the building but declined to provide ages. Neighbors said the couple was elderly.

The Medical Examiner’s Office had not identified the victims Monday.

“We were enrolling them in hospice today,” the couple’s son-in-law said Monday afternoon in a brief interview before being whisked away by a relative. “They were real upbeat.”

Fire Department investigators will continue Tuesday to try to determine the origin and cause of the fire.

Dozens of family members and friends arrived at the house, including one woman who brought a bouquet of flowers to lay by the house.

Fire investigator Capt. James Hooker said, “The family asked for a couple of mementos,” so firefighters brought out a few items for them, including what appeared to be decorative plates. Family members also entered the downstairs portion of the home and retrieved what appeared to be paintings and other items.

The house was considered a total loss, and damage was estimated at $450,000, fire Capt. David Jenkins said; he added that further damage evaluation is ongoing.

The upstairs section of the house appeared to be gutted, with some sections of walls and roof missing. No one else was injured in the blaze.

The American Red Cross is assisting the family.

Nine fire companies with 35 personnel responded to the 11:52 a.m. two-alarm fire. The first company arrived at 11:59 p.m. and found the two-story house engulfed in fire, Jenkins said.

The Fire Department used water and its Compressed Air Foam System to extinguish the fire.

Police also responded, but the police homicide lieutenant said no foul play is suspected.

One man, who lived nearby, told Hawaii News Now his home received some minor damage.

Ellen Nakahara, 70, who was visiting her grandchildren a few houses away, said, “I could see orange flames just raging.”

Alice Akita, 92, who lives on Kekuanoni Street near the intersection with Kekuanoni Place, arrived home around lunchtime to fire engines and smoke.

“I saw the smoke and I thought, ‘Oh, no!’” said Akita, who moved to the neighborhood in 1950, when there was just a dirt road and a few homes. “Sad things like that happen.”