NEW ORLEANS — A blaze in a small, abandoned warehouse in New Orleans killed eight homeless people who were burning wood in a barrel to stay warm, the fire department said today.

A man who lives nearby said the homeless often seek refuge from the cold in the neighborhood’s many boarded-up buildings. Temperatures were unusually low — just below freezing — when the fire was reported around 2 a.m.

The building was fully ablaze when the first fire truck arrived, said New Orleans Fire Department spokesman Greg Davis. Firefighters could not tell the ages or genders of the bodies pulled from the rubble. The fire also killed two dogs.

Two survivors told firefighters that at least some of the people inside were unconscious when the building went up in flames. Davis said they might have been knocked out by carbon monoxide.