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Two sisters from Potomac died in a house fire in New York early Wednesday morning while vacationing with their family.

The sisters, identified by police as Jillian, 21, and Lindsay, 19, were asleep on the second floor of a Long Island rental home as the blaze spread. Their parents, Lewis Wiener, 60, and Alisa Wiener, 52, and brother, Zachary, 23, were able to escape the home and were transported with non-life-threatening injuries to a hospital, said Southampton town police department Lt. Susan C. Ralph.

There were smoke alarms in the house, but no one has reported hearing them, Ralph said.

In the Washington region, their community mourned their deaths.

“The world has lost two beautiful lights today, and we are heartbroken,” clergy and leadership at Washington Hebrew Congregation, where their father, attorney Lewis Wiener, known as “Lew” is president, wrote in a statement Wednesday.

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Jillian and Lindsay were both graduates of the Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, where they were “warm, engaged members of the Holton community who positively impacted both their classes and the larger school community,” Susanna A. Jones, the head of school, wrote in a message to the community.

The sisters were in college: Jillian was going into her senior year at the University of Michigan, and Lindsay would be returning to Tulane University for her sophomore year.

At the Holton-Arms School, Jillian was involved in athletics, playing soccer and ice hockey, but she found her passion in yoga and community service, Jones wrote. She was a certified yoga instructor and for her senior project, she taught classes to younger students. She also fundraised for families whose children have cancer.

Lindsay was president of the school’s Community Service Club during the coronavirus pandemic and was president of the Jewish Culture Club, Jones wrote.

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“Lindsay was a bright spirit and a leader, who was also dedicated to service, particularly getting young people involved in politics and generally promoting volunteerism,” Jones said.

Officers and firefighters responded to a call received at about 3:35 a.m. reporting that an occupied home was on fire. Once they arrived at the scene, they found the home “fully engulfed with three people who had escaped the blaze,” police said.

Lewis Wiener woke “to the sound of glass breaking and alerted the family to get out,” police said. He and his wife, Alisa, escaped from the room where they were sleeping on the first floor. Their son, Zachary, jumped out of a second-story window, Ralph said.

When Lewis Wiener realized his daughters were still inside, Ralph said he tried to rush back to save them, but the flames stood in his way.

“He burned his feet pretty bad. He couldn’t get back in,” Ralph said.

Fire personnel found the sisters in separate locations on the home’s second floor, and first responders performed CPR at the scene, en route to the hospital and upon arrival, Ralph said.

Police are investigating the circumstances of the fire, including the cause and why no one reported hearing a fire alarm.

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