Firefighters are trying to determine why a woman was unable to escape her burning Pasadena home Monday morning, KPRC Local 2 reported.
Pasadena firefighters said they responded to a fire on Dewberry Lane and Fresa Road at about 2:30 a.m. As firefighters battled the flames, they found Shirley Pullen, 45, dead inside her bedroom.
"She worked all of her life and she cared all of her life. She cared about everybody anybody, it didn't matter who they were," victim Tammy Pearson told KPRC Local 2.
Pullen was inside the home asleep with her two nephews and one of the nephew's girlfriends when the fire began. Everyone escaped without injury except for Pullen.
"I was sleeping and he had to drag me out of the house. I didn't know where I was going or anything," Pearson said.
One of Pullen's nephews and his girlfriend, Pearson, said they were unable to get to Pullen because it was too hot.
"Her room was engulfed in flames by the time I woke up," Jacobe Boatman, Pullen's nephew, told KPRC Local 2.
Pullen's nephews and Pearson saved what was left of their aunt's mementos as they wandered why the fire had to take away the aunt who rescued them when they lost their own parents years ago.
"I just want everyone to know that she was a good person. She took me and my girl off the street when I had nowhere to go," Boatman said.
"She never asked for nothing," Pearson said.
The residents that escaped said there was a smoke alarm inside the home but they never heard the alarm sound.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
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