An ember from a tree limb burned during yard work sparked a devastating fire that engulfed a West Deptford, New Jersey, home early Monday. The homeowner was trapped in the house and killed.
Jacqueline Truss, 75, was found dead near the kitchen of her home along the 1500 block of Division Street, authorities said.
A neighbor first saw flames coming from the rear of the single family home around 1:30 a.m. Monday. He threw a brick through a window of the home to aid in her escape, authorities said.
"We heard a loud boom. I jumped up, me and my wife," Joe La Grossa told NBC10. "I threw a big brick through the window and I was screaming for her. 'Jackie! Jackie!'"
Another neighbor, Jim Bessing, told NBC10 he pounded on the window to try and get Truss' attention.
"It was just raining fire down on us all over the place," Bessing said. "I was pleading with the people, 911, I know they're doing the best they can but I knew that this house was going to burn down before they got here."
When firefighters arrived, they conducted a search, but needed to pull back over fears that the home would collapse.
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"Sad feeling when you know you cannot get inside the house. They couldn’t see one foot inside the residence," West Deptford Police Chief Sean McKenna said. Truss was the widow of veteran West Deptford police officer George Truss, McKenna said.
The fire was so intense that several nearby trees were ignited and a neighboring home was damaged.
One firefighter suffered minor smoke inhalation. They're expected to be OK.
Fire investigators believe the blaze started in a barrel that contained charred tree limbs and other clippings from yard work. McKenna said Truss's family was working at the home on Sunday and burned limbs they had pruned.
The barrel was placed next to the house's rear wall and eventually reignited before spreading to the home, McKenna said.
The fire marshal ruled the fire's cause as accidental.
Truss's family told NBC10 she had spent the day with four of her seven children on Sunday.
"She had a great day yesterday so that's something," her daughter, Robin Bird, told NBC10. "My sister came and visited her, washed her hair for her. My brother was here. Cut her lawn for her."
Truss had been fighting kidney failure prior to her death.
"It really doesn't matter to us what happened," Bird said. "She's gone. And everything that's a memory of her is gone."
