ASSOCIATED PRESS

February 25, 2010

Migrant farmhand dies in North Country house fire

MADRID, NY (AP) -- Authorities say food left unattended on a stove started a house fire that killed a migrant farmworker and injured three others employed at a northern New York dairy farm.

Authorities say firefighters were called about 3 p.m. Wednesday to the fire at Mapleview Dairy in the St. Lawrence town of Madrid, near the Canadian border 130 miles northeast of Syracuse.

They say three farmworkers managed to escape the burning home, but a fourth man didn't make it out. His body was discovered in a bedroom. The victim's name hasn't been released.

Two of the other men were taken to hospital burn units while the third was treated and released.

The four men were milkers at the farm, one of the North Country's biggest, with more than 1,000 cows.