A woman died on Christmas morning in a house fire caused by an artificial Christmas tree. 22-year-old Destiny Abdrazack was celebrating Christmas in North Highlands, California, with her fiance’s family, when the incident occurred.
According to the Post, an electric spark from the tree started a fire around 2 a.m. on Wednesday, citing a report from NBC affiliate KCRA3, a local news outlet. The house did not have any smoke alarms.
According to her fiancé’s father, Ernest Isom, Abdrazack yelled that there were flames, waking up the five other people in the house, which didn’t have working smoke alarms. Firefighters rescued Abdrazack from the burning building, but she died later at a nearby hospital. Isom, his wife, son, and two other adults were among those who survived. It is claimed that the family had gone to sleep without turning off the lights on the Christmas tree.
They wanted to keep the lights on until the last minute, and all of them happened to fall asleep, and only had a few seconds to get out, he explained to the station. The fire also claimed the lives of two family dogs and the house.
According to neighbors, there was a loud noise that woke them and saw flames shooting out of the house when they looked out of the window. A flickering light could be seen on the tree, which was a telltale sign of a fire, Richard Byers explained. He rushed out of his house and seized a fire extinguisher, while another neighbor tried to extinguish the flames with a garden house. However, their efforts were useless. The fire just came back, and it was intense, Byers explained.
His wife, Brandy Byers, said they saw Isom’s family outside shouting for help when they came out of their home three doors down. They were yelling, ‘Destiny!’ ‘There’s a person inside!’, she said.
Abdrazack was rescued from the home’s living room by firefighters and taken to a nearby hospital in critical condition. Her family confirmed her death the following day and established a GoFundMe page to raise funds for her hospital and funeral expenses.
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