BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) – A woman and her young daughter died Wednesday morning in a two-alarm fire at a house with no working smoke detectors, fire officials said.

Ramona Holliday, 30, and her 2-year-old daughter, Trisha, were on the second floor of their apartment in the Ridge Avenue house when the fire was reported shortly after 6 a.m., Bridgeport city spokeswoman Caryn Kaufman said.

Ramona Holliday’s father, 59-year-old Javis Holliday Sr., was on the first floor and was rescued by a city police officer. He was in critical condition Wednesday night at Bridgeport Hospital.

The house’s owner, Jose Echevaria, declined to comment on the lack of working smoke detectors, the Connecticut Post reported.

“It’s a terrible thing that happened,” he said.

The fire started on the first floor of the house, but its cause and origin remained under investigation Wednesday.

Kaufman said she could not confirm television reports that said the fire might have started while Javis Holliday was cooking breakfast.

The deaths brought the number of city residents killed in fires in the past year to 10.

Wednesday’s fire occurred two days before a landlord of another apartment house was scheduled to be sentenced in Superior Court on negligent homicide charges in connection with a fire that killed a woman and her three children. Fire officials said there were also no working smoke detectors in that building.