Woman Found Dead In NW OKC House Fire

<p>A woman was found dead after a house fire in Northwest Oklahoma City Friday morning, and investigators are still trying to determine if it was an accident or foul play.&nbsp;</p>

Friday, January 27th 2017, 6:02 pm

By: News 9


A woman was found dead after a house fire in Northwest Oklahoma City Friday morning, and investigators are still trying to determine if it was an accident or foul play.

Crews arrived to the 1800 block of NW 9th Street shortly after 9 a.m. to find a heavily involved fire with lots of smoke. They found the victim in the front bedroom on the right side of a duplex, and learned quick thinking by a local mailman prevented further loss of life.

Reggie Sloan told News 9 he was walking on his daily route down the street when he noticed something was amiss.

“She normally waits for me to get her mail,” he said. “For some reason she wasn’t out here today, and when I passed by there after I left 1801 the air conditioner was smoking, so I was like something’s not right. I got to the back side and the door was smoking also, so I was like that’s a fire.”

Sloan said he ran to the front of the house to alert the woman who lives on the other side of the home.

“I bammed on the door,” he recalled, “then she don’t come at first. So, I was like nah, I know she’s in there. I know she’s in there, so I bammed again and she finally opened the door and I was like ‘you need to get out of here immediately.’”

Neighbors called 911, as the victim's housemate tried to find her friend and her friend’s two dogs.

Sloan said, “She tried to go to the back door and I told her, ‘No that’s probably too hot. Don’t touch the door. Let the fire department come and let them do their thing.’”

He said the woman replied, “’But I think she’s in there!’ I was like, ‘Well, there’s nothing you can do about it. I’m just glad I got you out of the house.’”

Firefighters told News 9 they had trouble finding the victim on their first walk-through of the house due to three or four feet of clutter throughout.

“If the fire does begin, it just means there’s a whole lot more fuel, so a lot more smoke production, a lot more heat with all those combustibles becoming involved in the fire,” said Battalion chief Benny Fulkerson.

Fire crews do not know how the fire sparked, but eventually found the woman lying on the floor of her bedroom partially on top of a furnace. She was not, however, badly burned, leaving questions about how she died.

The victim's identity has not been released. One of her dogs did escape during the fire, but the other one is still missing.

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