Careless cooking. 

That, according to Captain Daniel McNally of the Guilderland Police, was the cause of the Jan. 24 fire — now ruled accidental — at 7 Ayre Dr. in McKownville that destroyed the home of a family of seven, and that led to the hospitalization of six family members. 

The condition of Christine Sawyer, 51 — the one family member still hospitalized — was upgraded Feb. 19 from critical to fair.

The other five have been released from hospital care. Tyler and Aidan Morrissey, ages 5 and 6, were hospitalized briefly at Albany Medical Center, but released after just a few days. Tyler and Aidan Morrissey’s father, Daniel Morrissey, 40, and Sawyer’s grandsons, Michael Fosmire, 6, and Giovanni Felix, 4, were all hospitalized at the Clark Burn Center in critical condition, but have since been released.

Daniel Morrissey and Christine Sawyer are siblings. Sawyer’s daughter, Amanda Sawyer — the mother of Fosmire and Felix — also lived there but was not home at the time of the fire.

McNally told The Enterprise that Daniel Morrissey had been cooking chicken wings sometime late at night before the fire broke out. Morrissey does not know how the fire started, McNally said Thursday, but told police that, when he went back toward the kitchen later, the room was heavily involved. Firefighters were called to the home at about 3:30 a.m. on Jan. 24.