YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- An anguished mother, naked and bleeding, banged on the door of the house across the street and screamed for help in a fruitless plea to save her five children as a late-night fire swallowed their Ohio home, a neighbour said Monday.

Fire officials in Youngstown said the woman jumped from a second-story window and was the only survivor of the Sunday blaze that killed the children. They ranged in age from 1 to 9, the youngest being twins.

Neighbour Aaron Baldwin said by the time he awoke from the woman banging on his door, her house was engulfed in flames and there was no way for neighbours to rush inside.

"It was horrible. It was the worst thing you have to see," said Baldwin, 28, who also has five young children. "I'm seeing myself in her predicament."

The Mahoning County Coroner's Office on Monday identified the children as 9-year-old Aleysha Rosario, 3-year-old Charles Gunn, 2-year-old Ly'Asia Gunn, and 1-year-old twins Brianna and Arianna Negron.

District spokeswoman Denise Dick said Aleysha was an articulate fourth-grader at a Youngstown elementary school, where counsellors were being made available as news spread about the children's deaths.

State and local investigators were just beginning to search for a cause of the blaze. Officials said nothing so far indicates the fire was suspicious.

It swept through the old, two-story wood home after neighbours were awakened by a loud boom. Most of the damage was on the first floor, leading investigators to believe the fire started there, said Capt. Kurt Wright of the Youngstown Fire Department.

Firefighters found flames throughout the first floor when they arrived and were able to pull out three of the children, but they died at a hospital, Wright said.

The injured mother, whom investigators didn't publicly identify, was taken to a hospital.

One firefighter also was treated at a hospital and released, and another was treated at the scene.

Neighbours said the family had moved into the house earlier this year.

Neighbour Jerry Fields was among the visitors who piled stuffed animals beneath balloons in a makeshift memorial outside the charred and boarded-up home on Monday.

"I needed to do something," said Fields, 68. "I didn't know what else to do."