The couple, longtime residents of the neighborhood who moved from their native Portugal several decades ago, was found by firefighters within five feet of the front door of their house at 35 Cherry St. at about 6:40 a.m., fire officials said.

Fire Chief Ed Bradley said firefighters managed to get the woman out of the house and begin administering CPR, but the flames and heat were too intense to go back in to get the man. His body was removed from the house by the state medical examiner's office at about 10:30 a.m. The woman was pronounced dead in the emergency room at Jordan Hospital.

Fire officials declined to release the couple’s names, pending the notification of relatives. Neighbors in the close-knit area said the couple had four children, and that one of their sons lived with them and had left for work shortly before the fire started. Other relatives gathered outside the house this morning, weeping and embracing one another as word of the fatalities spread.

Susan Day, who lives directly across the street from the house that burned today, said of the couple: "They were just the nicest people."

Day, 43, has lived her whole life on Cherry Street and said she grew up with the couple's four children. "The last thing you think of is fire. It's just the worst of all things that could happen."

She said the man who died was 77 and disabled. His wife was 69.

Enos said the cause of the fire remains under investigation by local firefighters, police and the state fire marshal.

On Tuesday, a 77-year-old Plymouth woman was severely burned in a fire at her home on South Meadow Road. The fire marshal’s office said the fire was caused by an electrical malfunction.

The fire was reported just before 5 p.m. Firefighters found Delia A. Sutcliffe unconscious and with extensive burns on her upper torso. She was flown to Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston where she was listed in critical condition.