Fire Lt. Barry Pollard and firefighter Christopher Pohner rescued Lee through her bedroom window but she died from her injuries.
Updates the story posted at 4:20 a.m.
SPRINGFIELD –Unattended cooking was the cause of a house fire that took the life of 65-year-old Sixteen Acres resident Dorothy Lee early Wednesday, firefighters said.
The blaze at 24 Tumbleweed Road was reported shortly before 12:30 a.m. Lee’s daughter, who lived at the ranch house with her mother, and a pet dog managed to escape, Dennis Leger, aide to Commissioner Joseph Conant said.
8-14-13 - Springfield - Barbara Justice, who lives across the street from the scene of the fatal fire, she said grabbed a stepladder and attempted to get through a window of the burning home but did not have the strength to get it open. Barbara Justice, who lives across the street from Lee’s home, said she was one of the first to arrive on the scene and dialed 911. Lee’s daughter was outside the burning home by then and frantically reported that her mother was still inside her bedroom.
Justice said she ran back to her house, got a stepladder and attempted to open the window to Lee’s bedroom but she didn’t have the strength.
Justice said she could hear Lee crying for help. “I feel bad I couldn’t get her out,” Justice said. “Especially when I knew she was still alive.”
Lori Wanzo, another neighbor who ran over to help, said flames and smoke were intense. “All we could do was watch helplessly,” she said “It was awful.”
“The environment was unsurvivable,” Leger said.
Justice said somebody, she believes it may have been a police officer, took the stepladder and broke the bedroom window.
Lt. Barry Pollard and firefighter Christopher Pohner, who serve on Ladder 8, rescued Lee by going in through that window, Leger said. “She was quickly removed upon our arrival. She was still in the bed in the bedroom,” he said.
Members of the Rescue Squad, working lines, entered the home’s front and back doors and made it into the bedroom in time to assist Pollard and Pohner with the rescue, Leger said.
Lee died of her injuries, Leger said, adding that she likely succumbed of smoke inhalation.
Leger said two pans of food had been left unattended on a stove in the kitchen. “It’s the most common cause of fires in Springfield,” he said. “If anybody is cooking with oil or grease they should stay and watch what they are cooking,” he said.
Firefighters, after the fire was out, were unable to find any remnants of a smoke detector. “It’s the best thing that people can do to protect them from a residential fire. It increases your chance of survival ten-fold,” Leger said.
Neighbors said that Lee had lived in the home for ten years or more and that her daughter moved in several months ago to care for her.
The blaze caused an estimated $80,000 in damage, Leger said.
Officials with the Pioneer Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross responded to the fire and assisted Lee’s daughter, who was reportedly in the basement when it broke out, Leger said.
Investigators from Massachusetts Fire Marshal Stephen D. Coan's office were called to assist with the probe, which is standard protocol for fatal fires, Leger said.
Map showing location of Wednesday's fatal house fire on Tumbleweed Road in Sixteen Acres: