Authorities investigating a boarding house fire that killed four residents and injured another were reviewing Wednesday whether the facility, which housed mentally and physically disabled people, should have been licensed.

The city requires every rental dwelling to undergo a fire safety check, but the home had not been inspected for at least several years before Tuesday night’s blaze, Fire Chief Russell Brooks said.

County and state social service and mental health officials said Wednesday they did not regulate the home.

“Somehow this building went under the radar. It had a different classification. It was classified in with hotels and motels and it definitely wasn’t that,” Brooks said.

The cause of the Tuesday night fire had not been determined, he said. State arson investigators were assisting.

Neighbors said the home, one block from the Utica State Hospital for the Mentally Ill, was one of several on the street that house physically and mentally disabled people.

“They’re nice people,” said Josue Perez, who has lived across the street for seven years. “They are all challenged physically or mentally. They mostly sat on the porch with their coffee and smokes just hanging out.”

The house had some smoke detectors, but they weren’t installed in every bedroom as required and some had dead batteries, Brooks said.

Chief Fire Marshal Ray Beck said the fire started on the first floor near the front of the house and swept up a stairway to the second floor.

Beck said eight people lived in the house _ three on the first floor and five on the second floor. At least one person was injured.

Resident Tom Kozdra said he was asleep in his room when the fire started and a friend knocked on his door.

“He said ‘Get out, there’s a fire.’ I just went right out of there, out of my room,” said Kozdra, 59, who lived in the house for two years.

The house is owned by Donna Marano, who said the residents had nowhere else to go and many formerly were homeless.

“I’m just devastated,” Marano said. “I’ve been doing this for 23 years. These people are like family to me.”