Fatal Fire Taking Life Of 54-Year-Old Woman May Have Started With Cigarettes

ORION TOWNSHIP (WWJ) - A 54-year-old woman is dead in a fire that engulfed her Orion Township home early Thursday morning.

Township fire captain Robert Smith says by the time fire crews got the call around 3:15 a.m., the house and two pick up trucks outside were already ablaze.

"My gut instinct is that it was probably going for quite a while inside, and then finally got starvation of oxygen and blew out the window -- and probably started up again and got to the vehicles because they were so close to the house," said Smith.

Smith says the victim, who is not yet being named, was discovered dead in her bed. Her husband was at work when the fire broke out.

An autopsy has concluded she died of smoke inhalation.

The fire is believed to have started with some cigarette butts smoldering in a plastic garbage can.