79-year-old woman burned in fire was trapped for days, Washington official says

A Washington woman was taken to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle after suffering critical burns while she was trapped inside her Spokane apartment alone for days, a release from the Spokane Fire Department said.

The fire department responded to a 911 call from a “care provider” at an apartment building the morning of Nov. 24, where a fire had started three days earlier, according to the release. First responders found the 79-year-old “on the apartment floor, alone, minimally clothed, and critically burned [on] her face, head and neck,” the release said.

After treating the woman, first responders brought her to Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane, according to the release. She was later transferred to the Harborview Burn Center, the release said.

Investigators determined the fire started in the woman’s room the morning of Nov. 21 because “smoking materials” were “too close to combustibles,” according to the release. A fire alarm was activated for four minutes before being “silenced” and it was “not connected to a central panel that would alert the building for evacuation and notify the fire department,” the release said.

This story was originally published November 25, 2020 at 11:23 AM with the headline "79-year-old woman burned in fire was trapped for days, Washington official says."