Fire victims believed to be Amish bishop and teenage son
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A sheriff in southeastern Minnesota says the two people killed in a house fire are believed to be a local Amish bishop and his teenage son.
Fillmore County Sheriff Tom Kaase says the coroner has not made positive identification, but investigators believe the victims are 58-year-old Yost Hershberger and 18-year-old Ben Hershberger.
Two bodies were pulled from the rubble of their house near Canton, Minn., on Monday. A passer-by reported the fire about 1 a.m. Hershberger's wife, Barbara, and two other sons, ages 23 and 30, were taken to Gundersen Lutheran Hospital in La Crosse, Wis., hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
Kaase says the Minnesota Fire Marshal's office is investigating the cause of the fire. The sheriff says usually the only source of heat in an Amish home is a wood-burning stove.
The house is located about 5 miles north of the Minnesota-Iowa border, an area that's home to several hundred Amish people.
MPR News reporter Elizabeth Baier contributed to this report.
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