Smoke detectors woke Lisa Strebeck, Moore's mother, and her boyfriend, John Scmitt, in a second-floor bedroom, and they were able to escape, said Gibson City Police Chief Steve Cushman.

Scmitt "tried very boldly to get back in" as police arrived, but the fire blocked the stairs into the basement and a window on the other side of the home was too small for access, Cushman said.

Firefighters quickly extinguished the blaze and found the two girls in separate rooms in the basement, one near a window.

The girls were taken to Gibson Area Hospital, where they were both pronounced dead just before 6 a.m., said Ford County Coroner Douglas Wallace.

Autopsies were scheduled for Wednesday morning at the McLean County coroner's facilities, Wallace said.

Madisyn attended GCMS schools all her life, and Shanna started at the district in fall of 2007, district officials said.

"Both always had a smile on their faces whenever you'd see them in the hallway," said GCMS Middle School Principal Michael D. Bleich on Tuesday.

"They will be deeply missed by the GCMS Middle School staff and students," the district said in a statement Tuesday afternoon.

Strebeck, who works out of her home as a hair stylist, and Scmitt received treatment at the hospital but were not seriously injured.

The fire apparently started due to a mechanical failure in the home's boiler, which is near the stairs on the home's east side, where the heaviest flame damage was reported, Cushman said. The cause of the accidental fire was officially undetermined Tuesday afternoon as investigators looked at two possible locations near the boiler that could have been the ignition source, he said.

Madisyn lived at the house, which only had minimal smoke damage visible on the exterior, with Strebeck and Scmitt. Shanna lived in Gibson City with her mother, Cheryl Radakovich, Cushman said.

Community reacts

Reporters and TV cameras arrived in front of the home by noon Tuesday as word spread through town about the fire.

The Rev. John Koonce from Gibson City Pentecostal Church, who lives with his family across the street from where the fire took place, said he held a prayer session in his home Tuesday morning after hearing what had happened.

"We can have a biblical understanding of death ... but it still shakes you," said Koonce. "When it strikes 13 or 14-year-olds -- that's where it gets you. Their lives had just begun."

Koonce's daughter, Beth, who is a group manager at Alco Discount Store in Gibson City, said she remembers Madisyn coming into the store with Strebeck and that Madisyn was popular with a lot of friends.

Linda Livingston, who lives one home to the east of Strebeck's at 620 E. 11th Ave., said she saw and smelled smoke but didn't see flames. She said she was relieved the fire did not spread to her home a few dozen feet away, as she uses oxygen tanks for medical purposes and they are stored on the west side of her home.

GCMS school district sent out an automated message to staff and then to parents about the girls' deaths, said Superintendent Charles Aubry.

Staff members were scheduled to meet at 1 p.m. to discuss what types of counseling and support would be available to students Wednesday morning.

Aubry said staff also would likely come in early Wednesday to help coordinate the district's response.

The school district postponed girls and boys basketball games scheduled for Tuesday night.