ST. PAUL (AP) — Authorities say a fatal fire in St. Paul was caused by unattended cooking.

Firefighters responded to smoke coming from a duplex just after 12:45 a.m. Sunday. They put out the fire quickly and found an unresponsive 31-year-old man in a back bedroom. He died at Regions Hospital.

A Fire Department statement says the food he was cooking caught fire and the blaze spread to the kitchen cabinets, producing large amounts of smoke and gutting the kitchen. The man was home alone at the time. His name has not been released.

Unattended cooking is the leading cause of building fires in Minnesota. It's the first fire death in St. Paul this year. It's been just over a year since the last one.

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