WEST, Texas — Buck Uptmor didn’t have to go to West Fertilizer Co. when the fire started. He wasn’t a firefighter like his brother and cousin. But a ranch of horses next to the flames needed to be moved. “He went to help a friend,” said Joyce Marek, Uptmor’s aunt. “And then it blew.”

Two days after the fertilizer facility exploded, authorities announced Friday that they had recovered 14 bodies, confirming for the first time an exact number of people killed.

Grieving relatives filed into a church offering comfort for families, as volunteers nearby handed out food to those still unable to return to homes damaged by the massive blast.

Ten of the dead were first-responders — including five from the West Volunteer Fire Department and four emergency medics, West Mayor Tommy Muska said.

The dead included Uptmor and Joey Pustejovsky, the city secretary who doubled as a member of the West Volunteer Fire Department. A captain of the Dallas Fire Department, who was off-duty but responded to the fire to help, also died.

The explosion was strong enough to register as a small earthquake and could be heard for many miles. It demolished nearly everything for several blocks. More than 200 people were hurt, and Muska said five first-responders were among those who remained hospitalized Friday.

The first-responders “knew it was dangerous. They knew that thing could go up at any time,” said Ronnie Sykora, who was Pustejovsky’s deacon at St. Mary of the Assumption Catholic Church. “But they also knew that if they could extinguish that fire before it went up, that they could save tens of lives, hundreds of lives. That’s why they were in there.”

Gov. Rick Perry said the state would offer help to the 29-member local fire department that had been “basically wiped out.”

“To the first-responders: I cannot say thank you enough,” Perry said.

Hours later, President Barack Obama issued an emergency declaration and pledged federal disaster relief aid to help West recover. After addressing Friday night’s arrest of the second Boston Marathon bombing suspect, the president extended his prayers and sympathies to everyone affected by the plant explosion and said he’d spoken to Perry and Muska and vowed that the community would get the resources it needs to rebuild.

In a town of just 2,800 people, everyone here knew someone affected by the explosion.

Officials offered reassurances Friday about the 60 or so people listed as unaccounted for after the blast. McLennan County Judge Scott Felton said many people on the list probably lost their homes and have simply been difficult to locate since the Wednesday evening accident.

“I think we’re going to eliminate 99 percent” of those listed, he said.

West Fertilizer stores and distributes anhydrous ammonia, and it also mixes other fertilizers.

Owner Donald Adair released a statement saying he never would forget the “selfless sacrifice of first-responders who died trying to protect all of us.”

One of the plant employees also was killed.

Federal investigators and the state fire marshal’s office began inspecting the blast site Friday to collect evidence that may point to a cause.