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Marlton residents who had organized a cookout at their house on the Fourth of July said they remember two neighbors stopping by to chat and have a few drinks before they went to their house next door and built a bonfire.

About 10 minutes later, the cookout organizers saw flames on the porch steps of the house in the 12300 block of Wheeling Avenue, a fire that spread into an intense blaze that killed the two men and turned their home into charred ruins around midnight, neighbors said Monday.

"They were gone," said Yvonne Thomas, a neighbor who hosted the party. "They were gone… It just seems so unreal."

Fire officials had not released the identities of the two men by Wednesday, but neighbors said their names were Danny and Renee. The body of one of the victims, found on the first floor, was so badly burnt that the person's identity and gender are still unknown, said Mark Brady, a spokesman for the Prince George's Fire/EMS Department. The other man was found dead in the house's basement.

Investigators have not determined the cause of the fire, but they hope to know more about the men and the cause of their deaths after the medical examiner completes an autopsy in the next few days, Brady said.

"[Danny] was a good person, a good person," said Derrick Thomas, Yvonne Thomas' husband, who was at the party. "Very full of laughs. Just a friendly guy, is all."

Derrick Thomas said the two men were in their 30s or 40s and said Danny lived in the house, but he did not know their last names. A person listed in state property records as the house's owner could not be reached for comment by press time.

Wendell Sandifer, Derrick Thomas' uncle, was in his house's backyard grilling when he saw the fire begin about 200 feet away, he said. The two men had built a 16-foot-tall bonfire in their backyard, and at first Sandifer thought they had built a second fire, he said. Then he noticed a red glow coming through the house's front window, which shattered from the heat a few minutes later, he said.

Sandifer said he ran to the house, kicked in its front door and tried to go inside before he was forced out by intense smoke. Derrick Thomas called 911.

The call was received around 11:45 a.m., and responders arrived on the scene within 10 minutes, Brady said. Firefighters tried to contain the fire and entered the home, but they were quickly forced out minutes before its roof collapsed, he said.

Sandifer said he thinks the fire might have been caused by the bonfire, which was about five feet from the steps on the house's back porch, which he said was the first part of the home to catch fire. He said the two men had been drinking at the party.

"They was pretty, I would say, intoxicated," he said. "They were able to move around, but they had been drinking, I would say that."

Sandifer and other neighbors said there was a third man who was with the two victims, who drove away but returned to the house after his car broke down nearby. The third man came back after the fire started, they said.

E-mail Greg Holzheimer at gholzheimer@gazette.net.