Two firefighters died while working to extinguish a raging fire Wednesday aboard an Italian cargo ship that was loading automobiles at Port Newark in New Jersey, the authorities said. The firefighters “made an attempt to extinguish the fire and, because of the intense heat, they got pushed back out of the area where the initial fire was,” Chief Rufus Jackson of the Newark Fire Department said in a news conference early Thursday. The firefighters who died on the ship, the Grande Costa d’Avorio, were not immediately identified. “This was a tragedy, and my heart goes out to the family of each of these members and also the Newark Fire Department,” Chief Jackson said. “We’re going to continue to work, and we’re going to continue to pray for the family of the two members who were lost tonight.”Port Authority police officers responded after 9:30 p.m. on Wednesday to a fire on a ship that was docked at Port Newark, said Lenis Valens, a spokeswoman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

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