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Tragedy at Baypoint
January 12th, 2012BAY POINT, Calif. — Fire crews began searching for the cause of an early morning fire at a Bay Point townhome Saturday that killed a 60-year-old woman who was reportedly bed-ridden in the days before her death.
The fire at a townhome complex on Tammy Circle was reported to the Contra Costa County Fire Department just before 5 a.m. Saturday.
Responding crews had extinguished the flames by 5:30 a.m., though smoke continued to billow from the embers for hours afterward.
When firefighters reached the second story of the burning townhome, they discovered the woman’s body, according to county Fire Marshall Lewis Broschard.
Officials didn’t reveal her identity to reporters Saturday, but several neighbors told KTVU that she had been staying with her friend, a 62-year-old man, in the townhome. They also reported that the victim had been ill recently and was confined to her bed.
Neighbor Sylvia Perez, who says she had been neighbors with the man in the townhome for 20 years, says his friend “couldn’t walk because she was really sick.”
“She had lost her home, so her friend was helping her out and letting her stay with him,” said Perez..
The man who lived in the townhome was able to escape the fire with minor burns and was taken to a nearby hospital for observation, Brouschard said.
Crews were able to contain the fire to the one unit, but there was smoke and water damage to two adjoining townhomes.
Broschard said that a total of five adults and four children had been displaced by the fire.
The man who escaped the fire told fire crews that he did not remember hearing smoke alarms go off that morning, according to Broschard, and nearby neighbors told KTVU that they didn’t hear alarms.
