Off-duty Members Attempt Rescues at Fatal Tenn. Fire

June 08--Investigators were seeking the cause Friday of an East Knox County house fire that killed a woman.

The name of the victim, who authorities say ushered several others from the Hammer Road home as it burned, had not been released Friday.

Off-duty Rural/Metro firefighter Matthew Clift was first to arrive on scene at the single-story house about 8:30 a.m. Heavy fire and thick black smoke were evident.

The fire appeared to be located at the front of the house at 7215 Hammer Road, said Clift, who lives about a mile from the scene. He was one of three off-duty firefighters who arrived before the fire truck.

The victim ushered two children and their mother out of the house but for some reason did follow them to safety, said Rural/Metro Battalion Chief Jeremy Rood.

One of the survivors told Clift the victim was still inside. Clift and Capt. Scott Roberts circled to the back of the house and broke a window to enter.

"It's really sad," Rood said. "Lots of times someone dies in a fire, they're asleep and never wake up, but this lady was quite awake."

One of the survivors told authorities the victim has two children in Honduras. The victim lived in the house with her husband, another couple and that couple's two children. They were all native Spanish-speakers, Rood said.

A third woman lived in an apartment behind a garage that was attached to the main home through a breezeway. That woman got out safely with little damage to her apartment, Rood said. Both men in the home were at work when the fire was called in.

Rescue Engine 226 crews arrived shortly after Clift and Roberts entered the home, and a crew was sent in through the front door.

"It felt like we had crawled into the fire and didn't realize it," Roberts said. "It was hotter than I've been in 10 years. I couldn't even see Matthew with his flashlight right in front of me."

Firefighters found the victim in a front bedroom unconscious on the floor.

Clift handed the woman through a front porch window to an EMS crew, who took her to University of Tennessee Medical Center, where she died.

The fire was extinguished shortly afterwards, and no firefighters were injured in the blaze.

The cause of the investigation was under way. The Knox County Sheriff's Office was taking part in the investigation, according to Rood.

Copyright 2013 - The Knoxville News-Sentinel, Tenn.