Flames Threaten Fort Worth Neighborhood In Fatal House Fire
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FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) - Loved ones are grieving the loss of a Fort Worth woman killed in her home after fire spread throughout the house and even threatened neighbors' homes. It happened early Saturday morning at the house on Spanish River Trail.
Neighbors' cell phone video captured what firefighters found when they arrived to see flames coming out of every window of the two-story house. Once they were able to make it inside, they found one person dead. Friends identify the victim as 54-year-old Kelly Lafferty.
"If something was wrong with you or you had a bad day, she was the type of person that made it her goal after that point to try to pick you up, and to try to just make your day a little better," Zachary Little said.
Little has known the victim and her family for years. He and other neighbors still can't believe how fast the fire spread.
"It's a little overwhelming. It just looks like it engulfed the whole inside," Little said.
Neighbors said from the outside they weren't sure how far the flames would spread.
"I've never seen anything like it. It was the scariest thing I've ever seen," Stephanie Lewis said.
Lewis shot video of the flames while she used her garden hose to spray her fence and her neighbor's roof trying to put up one last line of defense.
"It felt like it was just right here. I mean with the embers coming over and they were kind of floating over, but it literally looked like it was just in my neighbor's yard," Lewis said.
Firefighters said the fire was so intense they almost didn't have enough water to fight it.
"All I can think about now is just how she must have felt inside and just how quickly that that fire must have spread to something out of control," Little said.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation. Because of the fatality, arson investigators will be taking a closer look at the fire, but the department is not saying whether they consider the case suspicious.
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