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The village of Florida is mourning a single father and his children, who died in a fire at their home on Pulaski Highway.
Friends of Shane Munn, 50, and his two sons have been agonizing over every new detail they learn about the family's death.
New York State Police said Munn was doing yardwork outside the home Saturday evening when the fire broke out, adding that a preliminary investigation determined the fire was caused accidentally.
Police said Monday that the upstairs neighbor, who escaped with her two children, told investigators she saw Munn run back into the home where his two nonverbal, autistic children were.
Munn was pronounced dead in the living room.
The boys, Ryan, 17, and Travis, 12, were taken to the hospital where they later died.
Bar owners Tom and Erin Mattingly said they became close friends with Munn over the last five years.
They said he would often come for lunch after his shifts working as a utility lineman, and that he would also pick up chicken fingers for his sons.
"He was very reserved guy," Tom Mattingly said. "No question that the burden of raising two special-needs kids weighed heavily on him."
"Shane and I would chat a lot about his kids and the state of his life," Erin Mattingly said. "He was a really good guy."
Ryan and Travis' former caretaker arrived to the Pulaski Highway property Monday morning to lay a balloon tribute in the yard, as investigators were still processing and photographing the scene.
The caretaker said Munn was always "very grateful for all the simple things I taught the boys" and was completely devoted to the boys.
The tragedy has also weighed heavily on first responders who were at the scene Saturday, Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus said.
Neuhaus said he has dispatched one of the county's mental health professionals — who is also a retired police officer — to help first responders to process what they saw as they tried to help the Munns out of the burning home.
News 12 Reporter Jade Nash's Sunday evening report on the fatal Goshen house fire
