Elderly woman dies in Weakley County house fire

WEAKLEY COUNTY, Tenn. — An 88-year-old woman died in her home early Friday morning after her house caught fire.

Weakley County Fire Department got the call at about 5 a.m. Friday.

“We arrived on scene at 5:15 to a house fully engulfed and a known entrapment,” said Ronald Legans, chief of Latham-Dukedom Volunteer Fire Department.

Officials say the fire is believed to have started when a tree fell on the electrical unit of the house, causing it to smolder for an unknown amount of time, and eventually turning into a full-fledged fire.

They cleared the scene for the first time at about 9:30 a.m. It took almost four hours and 10 trucks to put out the fire. Then, they had to come back a second time at about 11 a.m. to put out more hotspots.

“Latham had five trucks, Palmersville had two, South Fulton had one, Water Valley had one and Cuba, Kentucky, had one,” Legans said.

They believe the woman who died was asleep when the fire occurred.

“She’s a good woman. She’s in her 80s. I’m going to guess she was asleep in her recliner where she normally sleeps,” Legans said.

It is unclear if the woman had working smoke alarms at the time of the fire.